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POLITICAL STATUS 



OF THE 




BY RUMSEY SMITHSON, 

MEMBER OF THE ILLINOIS CONFERENCE OF THE EPISCOPAL METHODIST CHURCH. 



" Ye shall know them by their fruits." — Mat. mi, 16. 



SECOND EDITION. 




CANTON, ILL.: 

H. S. HILL, PRINTER, COR. FULTON AND WASHINGTON STREETS, PEORIA, ILL. 

1868. 



'•I 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year A.D. 1868, hj 
RUMSEY SMITITSOX, 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the South- 
ern District of Illinois. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 031473 



I 



INTRODUCTION, 



Fkom an early period two distinct and antagonistic elements 
have existed in the Christian Church — one political and the 
other non-political. This distinction is now very strikingly por- 
trayed in the history of the American Churches. The political 
element has ever been disposed to interfere in the affairs of state, 
while the other has always discarded such intermeddling on the 
part of the Church as no part of her mission, and wholly con- 
trary to the example and teaching of Christ and the Apostles. 
This interference has led to the division of the leading Protest- 
ant denominations in these United States. 

A political element has existed in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church from her organization. Her first two bishops were, for 
a time, divided in opinion and practice on this subject. Bishop 
Coke, however, who favored interference in civil matters, soon 
discovered his error and renounced it. The political element in- 
creasing in numbers, continued to disturb the peace and harmony 
of the connection, until such was the state of things in the 
Church, that the General Conference of 1844, in the City of New 
York, deemed a division of the body essential to the interests oi 
Christ's Kingdom, and consequently a "plan of separation" was 
agreed upon in that Conference. Pursuant to the plan adopted, 
the Church became divided into two bodies — Northern and 
Southern. Since the division, the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, has maintained a non-secular character, while the M. E. 
Church (North) has boldly entered the arena of political agita- 
tion. A religious organization, like that of the M. E. Church, 
claiming, as she does, the right to dictate in governmental affairs 
— to reprove and rebuke national authority, declaring the Church 
to be the guardian of the nation, and making peremptory demands 
of the government in her favor, should be regarded with a vigil- 
ant eye. 



4 



INTRODUCTION. 



As a body her political career of late has been such that no 
one acquainted with her recent history can fail to recognize her 
political and partisan character. The author proposes by numer- 
ous extracts from her own records to show up her true political 
status. In this the M. E. Church can not consistently complain, 
as it is but giving a more extensive publicity to her own prin- 
ciples and measures as set forth and advocated in her journals, 
periodicals and literature. 



POLITICAL STATUS. 



Section I. 



POSITION OF THE M. E. CHURCH IN FORMER YEARS. 

In order that the reader may see how far the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church has drifted from its former position, I subjoin a 
few extracts from the proceedings of the General Conferences of 
1836 and 1840. 

Preamble and Resolutions adopted by the General Confer- 
ence of 1836, in Cincinnati, by a vote of 120 to 14: 

Whereas, Great excitement has prevailed in this country on the subject 
of modern abolitionism, which is reported to have been increased in this 
city recently by the unjustifiable conduct of two members of the General 
Conference in lecturing upon and in favor of that agitating subject ; and 
whereas, such a course on the part of any of its members is calculated to 
bring upon this body the suspicions and distrust of the community, and to 
misrepresent its sentiments in regard to the points at issue ; and whereas, 
in this aspect of the case, a due regard for its own character, as well as a 
just concern for the interests of the Church confided to its care, demand a 
full, decided, and unequivocal expression of the ideas of the General Confer- 
ence in the premises ; therefore, 

1. Resolved, By the delegates of the Annual Conferences in General Con- 
ference assembled, that they disapprove, in the most unqualified sense, the 
conduct of two members of the General Conference, who are reported to 
have lectured in this city recently upon and in favor of modern abolitionism. 

2. Resolved, That they are decidedly opposed to modern abolitionism, and 
wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and 

olitical relation between master and slave as it exists in the slaveholding 
tates of this Union. — Bangs's History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
vol 4, pp. 245, 246. 

In the foregoing preamble and resolutions the strongest lan- 
guage is used in condemnation of the conduct of two of the mem- 
bers of the General Conference in lecturing in favor of abolition- 
ism. That body, in the most unequivocal terms, declared its 
opposition to abolitionism, and "wholly disclaimed any right, 



6 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



wish or intention to interfere in the civil and political relations 
between master and slave as it existed in the slaveholding states." 
The rescinding of the foregoing preamble and resolutions by the 
General Conference of 1868, in Chicago, thirty- two years after 
their adoption, does not effect them as a matter of history. 
They show the position of the General Conference of 1836 just 
the same as though no subsequent rescinding act had occurred. 
This rescinding act condemns the fathers, and is an additional 
evidence that the M. E. Church has wandered very far from its 
former position. 

Exteact from the Pastoral Address of the General Confer- 
ence of 1836 : 

6. We now approach a subject of no little delicacy and difficulty, and 
which we cannot but think has contributed its full proportion to that 
religious declension over which we mourn. It is not unknown to you, dear 
brethren and friends, that, in common with other denominations in our 
land, as well as our citizens generally, we have been much agitated in some 
portions of our work with the very excitable subject of what is called abo- 
litionism. This subject has been brought before us at our present session — 
fully, and, we humbly trust, impartially discussed, and by almost a unani- 
mous vote highly disapproved of ; and while we would tenderly sympathize 
with those of our brethren who have, as we believe, been led astray by this 
agitating topic, we feel it our imperative duty to express our decided disap- 
probation of the measures they have pursued to accomplish their object. It 
cannot be unknown to you, that the question of slavery in these United 
States, by the constitutional compact which binds us together as a nation, is 
left to be regulated by the several State Legislatures themselves ; and there- 
by is put beyond the control of the general government, as well as that of 
ail ecclesiastical bodies; it being manifest, that in the slaveholding states 
themselves the entire responsibility of its existence or non-existence rests 
with those State Legislatures. And such is the aspect of affairs in reference 
to this question, that whatever else might tend to meliorate the condition of 
the slave, it is evident to us, from what we have witnessed of abolition 
movements, that these are the least likely to do him good. On the contrary, 
we have it in evidence before us, that ihe imflammatory speeches, and 
writings, and movements, have tended, in many instances, injuriously to 
affect his temporal and spiritual condition by hedging up the way of the 
missionary who is sent to preach to him Jesus and the resurrection, and 
by making a more rigid supervision necessary on the part of his overseer, 
thereby abridging his civil and religious privileges. 

These facts, which are only mentioned here as a reason for the friendly 
admonition which we wish to give you, constrain us as your pastors, who 
are called to watch over your souls as they who must give an account, to 
exhort you to abstain from all abolition movements and associations, and to 
refrain from patronizing any of their publications ; and especially from 
those of that inflammatory character which denounce in unmeasured terms 
those of their brethren who take the liberty to dissent from them. Those 
of you who may have honest scruples as to the lawfulness of slavery, con- 
sidered as an abstract principle of moral right and wrong, if you must speak 
your sentiments, would do much better to express yourselves in those terms 
of respect and affection which evince a sincere sysmpathy for those of your 
brethren who are necessarily, and in some instances, reluctantly associated 
with slavery in the States where it exists, than to indulge in harsh censures 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



7 



and denunciations, and in those fruitless efforts which, instead of lightening 
the burden of the slave, only tend to make his condition the more irksome 
and distressing. 

From every view of the subject which we have been able to take, and 
from the most calm and dispassionate survey of the whole ground, we have 
come to the solemn conviction that the only safe, Scriptural, and prudent 
way for us, both as ministers and people, to take, is wholly to refrain from 
this agitating subject, which is now convulsing the country, and consequent- 
ly the Church, from end to end, by calling forth inflammatory speeches, 
papers, and pamphlets. While we cheerfully accord to such all the sincerity 
they ask for their belief and motives, we cannot but disapprove of their 
measures as alike destructive to the peace of the Church, and to the happi- 
ness of the slave himself— Bangs' s Hist. M. E. Church, vol. 4, pp. 258-260. 

From this address it will be seen that the General Conference 
of 1836 regarded those imbibing abolition views as having been 
led astray. It held that slavery was "beyond the control both 
of the General Government" and of " all ecclesiastical bodies." It 
advised the members of the Church to " abstain from all abolition 
movements and associations," and to "refrain from patronizing 
abolition publications." It maintained that the agitation of the 
subject of slavery was "unsafe, unscriptural and imprudent," 
and that abolition measures were " alike destructive to the peace 
of the Church and to the happiness of the slave." Such was the 
testimony of the fathers in former times. They saw the blight- 
' ing influence of the slavery agitation upon the spirituality of the 
Church, and bore witness against it as a great evil. 

Extract from the reply of the General Conference of 1840, in 
Baltimore, to an Address from the Wesleyan Methodist Confer- 
ence in Great Britain: 

Of these United States (to the government and laws of which, "accord- 
ing to the division of power made'to them by the Constitution of the Union, 
and the Constitutions of the several States," we owe, and delight to render, 
a sincere and patriotic loyalty,) there are several which do not allow of 
slavery. There are others in which it is allowed, and there are slaves ; but 
the tendency of the laws, and the minds of the majority of the people, are 
in favor of emancipation. But there are others in which slavery exists so 
universally, and is so closely interwoven with their civil institutions, that 
the great body of the people (the source of laws with us) hold it to be treas- 
onable to set forth any thing, by word or deed, tending that way. Each one 
of all these States is independent of the rest and sovereign, with respect to 
its internal government, (as much so as if there existed no confederation 
among them for ends of common interest,) and therefore it is impossible to 
frame a rule on slavery proper for our people in all the States alike. But 
our Church is extended through all the States, as it would be wrong and 
unscriptural to enact a rule of discipline in opposition to the Constitution and 
laws of the State on the subject, so also would it not be equitable or Scriptu- 
ral to confound the positions of our ministers and people (so different as 
they are in different States) with respect to the moral question which slav- 
ery involves. 



8 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Under the administration of the venerated Dr. Coke, this plain distinction 
was once overlooked, and it was attempted to urge emancipation in all the 
States ; but the attempt proved almost ruinous, and was soon abandoned by 
the doctor himself. While, therefore, the Church has encouraged emanci- 
pation in those States where the laws permit it, and allowed the freedman to 
enjoy freedom, we have refrained, for conscience sake, from intermeddling 
with the subject in those other States where the laws make it criminal. And 
such a course we think agreeable to the Scriptures, and indicated by St. 
Paul's inspired instruction to servants in his First Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, chap, vii, ver. 20, 21. ' For if servants were not to care for their ser- 
vitude when they might not be free, though if they might be free they should 
use it rather; so, neither should masters be condemned for not setting them 
free when they might not do so, though if they might they should do so 
rather —Bangs' s Hist. M. E. Church, vol. 4, pp. 379, 380. 

According to this extract the General Conference of 1840 con- 
demned all interference on the part of the Church with the civil 
institutions of the country; declared it "wrong and unscriptural 
to enact a rule of discipline in opposition to the Constitution and 
laws of the States on the suubject" of slavery, and quoted from 
St. Paul in justification of its position. This body also declared 
it wrong to condemn slaveholders. 

If space would allow, many more extracts of like character 
might be taken from the past records of the M. E. Church to 
show her opposition, in former years, to all interference in civil 
affairs, but these are sufficient. If the reader will carefully com- 
pare these extracts which form a part of the official records of 
the M. E. Church in times past, with what may follow in this 
book of the subsequent actions of said Church he will have no 
difficulty in seeing that she is in direct opposition to her former 
position. 



Section II. 

Political Platform, adopted by the General Conference of 
1864, in Philadelphia : 

The causes of this desolating war are not recent. Early in our history the 
Christian spirit manifested by the first colonies on the New England shores 
declined, and a new theory of government was introduced. Our statesmen 
turned away from the recognition of God as the source of all civil authority, 
and his Word as the foundation of law, and announced the will of the peo- 
ple, the consent of the governed, as the source of power. It is a matter of 
regret and a cause of reproach that in our otherwise most excellent Constitu- 
tion the name of God does not appear, not even in the oath prescribed for 
the President. There is nothing in that instrument that indicates that 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



9 



we are a Christian nation. It is not strange that, under such circumstances, 
slavery, an institution ever offensive to God and contraiy to the first prin- 
ciples of a republican government, was allowed and guarded. But in the 
hour when, in defiance of the teachings of Providence and history, this 
wrong was recognized, it became a necessity that it should be removed 
peaceably or by war. The causes of this conflict are coeval with our history 
as a nation. 

Our forgetfulness of God has been manifested in a disposition to sacrifice 
moral principle to expediency in order to secure a temporary peace, in the 
scorn with which the enunciation that there is a law higher than the Con- 
stitution was received, and in the shameless corruption that characterized 
legislation for many years. 

Slaveholding, essentially aristocratic, fostering a spirit of arrogance and 
exaction, is necessarily opposed to the doctrine of human equality. Too 
long the nation met the haughty exactions of slaveholders with servile com- 
pliance ; but at length the limit was reached when there was no alternative 
but resistance or the sacrifice of all manhood and virtue. Then was exhibit- 
ed that sublime uprising of the people that astonished the world, and the de- 
termination was avowed to defend at any cost our Constitution and the in- 
tegrity of our government. But still, forgetful of God, we boasted of our 
power to crush the foe, and were not prepared to render justice to the op- 
pressed. 

God suffered our armies to be turned back in confusion and our pride to 
be cast down in the dust. We have struggled on, expending our treasures 
with a lavish hand, sacrificing the lives of our young men, and mortgaging 
the industry of coming centuries to meet our accumulating debt. 

Chastened by adversity, may we learn to acknowledge our dependence 
on God for power and victory, and also to recognize fully the brotherhood 
of man. Our country hitherto has been the land of the free only in name ; 
but we trust the time will soon come when in no part of its wide domain 
will slavery be known. 

The safety in the rebellious states of our civil institutions, as well as justice 
to those who have been enslaved, requires that in all the privileges of citi- 
zenship, as well as in all the other rights of a common manhood, there shall 
be no distinction founded on color. Those who have periled their lives 
with less encouragement than any other class has received to defend our 
liberty may surely by right, human and divine, claim all the privileges the 
ballot can bestow. Most certainly free institutions will be as safe with 
them as with the descendants of those who have incurred the crimes of per- 
jury and treason to overthrow our government. Provision should be made 
to give those a share in the soil who have cultivated it without recompense 
and defended it with their blood. 

We should frown with indignation on all as guilt}- of disloyalty who cold- 
ly criticise every measure of the administration in this struggle for the na- 
tional life, under the hypocritical pretense that they are careful that the 
fundamental law shall not be violated ; and we should give to all honest, 
earnest, righteous measures to crush this rebellion our hearty support. 

2. Resolved, That it is the duty of the government to prosecute the war 
with all its resources of men and money till this wicked rebellion shall be 
subdued, the integrity of the nation shall be secured, and its legitimate au- 
thority shall be re-established, and that we pledge our hearty support and 
co-operation to secure this result. 

4. Resolved, That we will use our efforts to secure such a change in the 
Constitution of our country as shall recognize the being of God, our depend- 
ence on him for prosperity, and also his word as the foundation of civil law. 

5. Resolved, That we regard slavery as abhorrent to the principles of our 
holy religion, humanity, and civilization, and that we are decidedly in favor 

2 



10 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



of such amendment to the Constitution and such legislation on the part of 
the States as shall prohibit slavery or involuntary servitude, except for 
crime, throughout all the states and territories of the country. — General Con- 
ference Journal o/1864,#p. 381, 282, 383. 

Relying on the promise and mercy of God, as far as we can we " proclaim 
liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." — Ibid, p. 376. 

The same body in an address to President Lincoln, after com- 
plimenting him upon his past political course, dictated his future 
civil policy in the following language : 

We trust that when military usages and necessities shall justify inter- 
ference with established institutions, and the removal of wrongs sanctioned 
by law, the occasion will be improved, not merely to injure our foes and in- 
crease the national resources, but also as an opportunity to recognize our 
obligations to God and to honor his law. We pray that the time may speed- 
ily come when this shall be truly a republican and free country, in no part 
of which, either state or territory, shall slavery be known. — General Confer- 
ence Journal, p. 379. 

Compare these extracts with those of the General Conferences 
of 1836 and 1840 and mark the contrast. The General Confer- 
ence of 1836 passed resolutions of censure upon two of its mem- 
bers for lecturing in favor of abolitionism, and, at the same time, 
disclaimed " any right, wish or intention to interfere in the civil 
and political relation between master and slave." The General 
Conference of 1864 declared itself in favor of abolitionism, issues 
an emancipation proclamation — thus interfering, in the most di- 
rect manner possible " in the civil and political relation of master 
and slave." The General Conferences of 1836 and 1840 discard- 
ed all political intermeddling on the part of the Church. The 
General Conference of 1864 converts the Church into a political 
and war party by adopting a regular political platform — by dic- 
tating the duty and policy of the States, and of the General Gov- 
ernment, and by pledging its " support and co-operation" to civil 
power in the prosecution of a bloody contest. 

But it may be claimed that this is not a political platform, but 
merely a report on the state of the country, as some ministers 
prefer to call it in certain localities. I answer, that if it had 
been adopted by a regular political convention it would be styled 
a political platform, and so should it be considered even though 
adopted by an ecclesiastical body. What business has a Church 
with national affairs ? and, by what authority does she appoint 
committees to pry into the affairs of State and to mark out, in 
their reports, the line of policy to be pursued by civil govern- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



11 



ments ? But let us examine further into the principles enunciated 
in this document and see if it is not solely political in its charac- 
ter. It condemns the Government as established by its founders 
upon the " consent of the governed, as the source of power." It 
attributes the civil war to the principles upon which the Govern- 
ment was established. It declares in favor of a higher law in 
the civil Government than the Constitution, so long a prominent 
feature of the abolition theory. It favors the elevation of ne- 
groes in the Southern States to all the " privileges of citizenship" 
— to be the legislators, judges and governors of the people in the 
south. It says there should be no distinction founded on 
color. It advocates the taking of land from the white people in 
the south and giving it to the negroes. It denounces those as 
disloyal who criticised the measures of the Administration. It 
favored the prosecution of the war. It recommends certain 
amendments and changes in the Constitutions of the States and 
General Government. It pledges the " efforts" of the Church to 
secure a change in the federal Constitution. These, with other 
purely political principles clearly enunciated in this instrument, 
show it to be nothing more nor less than a political platform, and 
as it was adopted by the General Conference, the highest repre- 
rentative council of the connection, it may properly be styled the 
Political Platform of the M. E. Church. 



Section III. 

POLITICAL PLATFORMS OF THE ANNUAL CONFERENCES. 

The following extracts are taken from ninety-seven political 
platforms as adopted by forty-six Annual Conferences of the M. 
E. Church at their different sessions from 1861 to 1866. These 
Conferences are scattered over the country from Maine to Cali- 
fornia, and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Dates and references 
will be. found in connection with the extracts. The Conferences 
adopting these platforms embrace an aggregate of about five 
thousand ministers representing every part and department of the 
M. E. Church. These extracts must of necessity be brief. If 



12 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



the platforms were copied as found in the printed minutes of the 
respective Conferences they would swell this book to several hun- 
dred pages : 



Xew England Conference. — Adopted by the session held in 
Boston, Mass., commencing April 3, 1861 : 

The freest and best government in existence is severely threatened with 
prostration by the traitorous hands of some of its chief functionaries ; the 
strongholds of liberty are beseiged and their outposts carried by the very 
men who had sworn to defend her ; the virtue of the people is attacked 
through the medium of their material interest ; and compromises are de- 
manded in favor of slavery which the people of the free States are sacredly 
obligated to spurn and reject. 

1. Resolved, That we solemnly and earnestly protest against any further 
compromise with this " sum of all villanies" either in the Church or State. 

3. Resolved, That this incompleteness of our work, as well as the interest 
on the subject which pervades all classes of American society, demands from 
the friends of the same progressive instead of a retrograde course ; a yield- 
ing of slavery rather than of freedom ; and a continued and earnest discus- 
sion of the subject in the accustomed channels of communication — Minutes 
New England Conference, p. 26. 

New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
"VYestfield, Mass., commencing April 2, 1862 : 

3. Resolved, That we hail as an auspicious era in our annals the late Mes- 
sage of President Lincoln to Congress and its prompt adoption by both 
branches of that body, wherein the sympathy of the Federal Ctovernment 
is declared unequivocally to be on the side of freedom ; and with equal joy 
do we receive intelligence of the passage in the Senate, by a two-thirds vote, 
of the bill for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. 

4. Resolved, That as we deeply deprecate the evils of civil war, we devout- 
ly pray that this struggle may never be ended by the Government humil- 
iating itself to a compromise with this great foe of God and humanity, by 
which it is assailed ; and that Ave look with grateful confidence upon the logic 
of events tending to the annihilation of the foul system of human chattelism, 
which has so long wounded our national honor, enfeebled the national Gov- 
ernment, debauched the public conscience, trammeled our religious enter- 
prises, robbed and crushed millions of our brethren, and insulted God. 

6. Resolved,Tk&t we behold in the tone of the National Government and 
in the victories of our arms the triumph of our principles which we have 
ever labored to enthrone in the public mind. 

9. Resolved, That we are proud of our own Commonwealth, whose sons, 
in this struggle, as in the one by which our independence was achieved, 
have been first to shed their blood for the country, whose chief Executive, 
by his forethought and energ} r , placed our volunteers in the van, and crown- 
ed them with the honor of saving our national capital, and whose officers 
and privates have shown by their gallantry and devotion that there still 
lives in them the spirit of the heroes of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker 
Hill. — Minutes New England Conference, pp. 24-25. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



13 



New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Charles town, Mass., commencing April 1, 1863. 

"We rejoice in, and hail as a measure of righteousness and fraught with 
great good, the Emancipation Proclamation issued at the commencement of 
the present year by the President of these United States ; and we look with 
confidence that that noble edict will stand unshaken and be maintained over 
all the country. And we would, as a body of ministers of Christ, take this 
opportunity to express our firm confidence in the integrity, enlightened 
patriotism and far-seeing statesmanship of our present Chief Magistrate, and 
of those associated with him in the administration of our government ; and 
we do hereby pledge to them our most cordial and hearty support, moral and 
material, to the extent of our ability, that rebellion may be utterly subdued, 
and freedom to all, with justice and prosperity, be secured. — Minutes New 
England Conference, p. 30. 

New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Chelsea, Mass., commencing March 30, 1864: 

In this work, the Church as an integral part of the nation has its full 
share of responsibility ; and it admits of no postponement. Her missionaries 
are already embarking, and her treasury is filling up for this work. But 
her movements must have more momentum. 

We cannot forbear to express our opinion that the government should at 
once give these freedmen a liberal interest in the soil which drunk up their 
spirits and life ; out of which they should now be taught to procure their 
own bread and education, as they readily will wiien this simple and just 
means is granted them. 

2. Resolved, That while war has clothed our nation in sackcloth, we huml 
bly thank God that it has also, under his disposal, proved to be the ange- 
who is leading forth a race from bondage, and is delivering our nation from 
its greatest sin by a strange but glorious Providence. 

4. Resolved, That our delegates to the approaching General Conference are 
hereby instructed to watch jealously our ecclesiastical policy at this critical 
epoch, that the prejudice of a race, so characteristic of an age now happily 
closing may no more appear, by expression or implication, in our legisla- 
tion ; and that, especially, in the reorganization of our Church in the terri- 
tory recovered from the rebellion, the hue of a Christian's skin may have no 
influence upon fixing his status in our membership or ministry. — Minutes 
New England Conference, p. 24. 



New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Cambridge, Mass., commencing March 29, 1865 : 

Resolved, That we here gratefully record our devout congratulations that 
there has been found a recuperaative energy in the nation, by which it has 
been able, in the solemn hour of its peril, to rally from its accelerated mo- 
tion toward the vortex of ruin, and lay its course by the chart of eternal 
justice, as seen in its opportune election to its chief magistracy — and, after 
four years of stern trial, his re-election to the- same office — a man of faith in 
God, and reverence for his holy laws, and who has stood in the terrible 
ordeal, like Moses in the wilderness, unperturbed alike by the murmurs of 
those whom he was to save, and the perils through which alone he could 
save them ; in the action of Congress, and its prompt ratification in State 
Legislatures, by which the Magna Charta of our liberties is so changed, that 
thereafter no slave can breathe beneath the national ensign ; in the change 



14 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



of the Supreme Judiciary, by which the nation shall never again he dis- 
graced and criminated by a judicial decision, making the color of the skin 
a pretext for disfranchising a human being ; in the spontaneous support 
given by the loyal millions to the government in its bloody and protracted 
struggle ; and in the material resources of the country, which have enabled 
the government to meet its enormous liabilities without the aid of foreign 
loans. 

Resolved, That we hail with deep gratitude and exultation the prospect 
of the speedy and utter extinction of the "sum of all villainies" from the 
land, and the prospective enfranchisement of the entire colored race within 
our borders, and that we heartily endorse the position taken by our honored 
Senator in Congress, demanding that, in all States hereafter represented in 
the Federal Government, the right of suffrage shall be accorded without dis- 
tinction of color. — Min utes Neic England Conference, p. 25. 

New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Chicopee, Mass., commencing March 28, 1866: 

0. Resolved, That we cordially approve and admire the noble stand taken 
and maintained by the Senate and House of Representatives in Washington 
against any connivance or compromise with treason or oppression. Es- 
pecially do we offer our sympathies and prayers for our own honored Sena- 
tors ; one of whom has endured in the past, with a martyr's fortitude, the 
barbarous assaults upon his person, of the champion of slavery ; and has 
lately been called to endure an equally unjustifiable assault upon his repu- 
tation by the present Chief Magistrate of the United States. 

4. Resolved. That we deplore, as one of our greatest national calamities, 
the untimely death of our late beloved President, Honest Abraham Lincoln; 
that, from the erratic and dangerous course pursued by his successor, we 
daily feel this sad calamity is constantly increasing. 

6. Resolved, That we hereby re-affirm our deathless antagonism to the 
spirit of caste, solemnly pledging ourselves, both as ministers and citizens, 
never to cease our efforts, until every man, regardless of color, shall possess 
in reality, as well as in name, his God-given prerogative of equality before the 
law. — Minutes JVeic England Conference, p. 38. 

New England Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Waltham, Mass., commencing March 27, 1867 : 

1. Resolved, That as the Fathers gave thirty years of glorious warfare, 
till sla very is dead, we, their sons, inheriting their work, and desiring to con- 
summate perfectly their labors, solemnly consecrate ourselves to the work 
of securing the annihilation of caste, till the full intent of the Fathers, and 
the birth-right of man — equality before the law, and impartiality at the bal- 
lot-box — shall be enjoyed by every American citizen, without distinction of 
race, color, or previous condition. 

2. Resolved, That in the recreancy of President Johnson to the cause of 
freedom, which has resulted in the Military Reconstruction Bill, by which 
the rebel leaders are forever deprived of holding office in the Republic, we 
gratefully recognize the hand of an overruling Providence. 

New England Confeeence. — Adopted by the session held at 
East Boston, Mass., commencing March 25, 1868 : 

We rejoice, that in carrying forward the work of national regeneration, 
the Congress of the United States has been so faithful to the will of God in 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



15 



building up our ruined State organizations on the only just and enduring 
foundations of the equal and fraternal oneness of man. 

We deeply regret the constant and violent hostility of the President of the 
United States to the action of Congress and the will of the people in respect 
to this duty, and that it has compelled his impeachment for high crimes and 
misdemeanors before the Senate of the United States. 

We hereby heartily and solemnly approve this action of the House of 
Representatives, ancf trust the Honorable Senate and the Chief Justice of 
the United States, in this most important trial, will magnify our laws, and 
make them honorable in the eyes of all the nations. 

We cordially approve the action of Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Army 
of the United States, in yielding up the keys of his office as Secretary of War 
ad interim, to the regular Secretary, immediately on the decision of the Sen- 
ate as to the right of occupancy. We also commend his whole action in 
this critical history, as inspiring confidence in the Republic, and as showing 
to all nations, that, in America, her first generals are obedient to law, in both 
drawing and sheathing the sword of victory. 

We most gratefully recognize the sagacity, courage, and faithfulness of 
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War. We honor his great services 
during the war, and those, equally valuable, which he has rendered in this 
our last struggle with the slave-power. Maj' God preserve him in his high 
trust until the Rebellion, whether in the White House or in its Southern 
departments, shall be utterly put down ! 

Resolved, That a copy of this Report be sent to the Secretary of War, the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate, and 
the Chief Justice and General of the Army of the United States. — Minutes 
Netc Engln.nd Conference, pp. 33-34. 

Maine Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Lewis- 
ton, Me., commencing May 9, 1866 : 

Whereas, One of the most desolating, bloody wars known in the worlds 
history, was inaugurated and prosecutedTby Southern rebels, aided by North- 
ern treason and Northern sympathy ; 

And Whereas, It is the duty of all good and loyal citizens to give ex- 
pression to their sentiments and opinions, when great and vital questions, 
affecting the interests of the country, are before the American people ; 
therefore, 

4. Resolved., That, as the judgment of this Conference, the people of the 
revolted States should never be reinstated in their political rights, or taken 
back into the Union as States, until they honestly and in good faith repu- 
diate their treason, secure to all their people equal civil and political rights, 
and furnish ample and sufficient guaranties for their future loyalty to~ the 
government of the United States. 

5. Resolved., That the noble, patriotic stand taken by the American Con- 
gress, to shut out treason and rebellion from its legislative halls, and to 
secure to all persons their just and lawful rights under the Constitution, 
meets our entire approbation, and we thank its members for triumphantly 
passing the Civil Rights Bill over the veto of a. President whose restoration 
policy receives support and sympathy from the men who rejoiced at the de- 
feat of the Federal arms, and mourned and lamented when victory perched 
upon the old flag. 

6. Resolved, That as evidence of the loyalty and patriotism of our own 
beloved Church, we can proudly point to the great historical fact that the 
Methodist Episcopal Church furnished more men for the Union armies than 



16 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



any other religious denomination in the Union, while upon every battle- 
field sleep their fallen heroes, who left their Church, their homes, and their 
all, to die for God and their country. — Minutes Maine Conference, pp. 25-26. 

Maine Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Bath, 
Me., commencing May 2, 1867 : 

1. Resolved, That we would devoutly acknowledge the merciful Provi- 
dence of God in all the blessings which distinguish our present condition as 
a member of the family of Nations. 

2. Resolved, That equal justice to all is the only principle of government 
worthy of a C hristian people. 

3. Resolved, That the thanks of the Nation are due to our Congress for 
the successful manner in which they handled the "humble individual" of 
American history. 

4. Resolved, That there can be no peace or safety if traitors are enabled to 
return to the places of political power, and therefore there can be no terms 
of reconstruction made with the present generation of rebels.— Minutes 
Maine Conference, p. 22. 

East Maine Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Waldoboro, Me., commencing May 16, 1866 : 

Resolved, That we heartily approve the formation of Conferences organ- 
ized without regard to differences of race or color, and fervently desire that 
all the brethren of our Liord Jesus Christ, of whatever race or color, may 
enjoy equal Church privileges with ourselves, and, if possessing the requi- 
site qualifications, may not, from the spirit of caste, meet with obstacles to 
their advancement to the floor of the General Conference or the board of 
Bishops. 

Resolved, That heart and heart, and hand in hand with all good men, 
standing here before the all-seeing eye, we solemnty pledge ourselves to each 
other and to God, that, while life shall last, we will never cease our efforts or 
our prayers until the civil and political rights of all persons are secured, 
throughout the length and breadth of our land. 

Resolved, That we would make honorable mention of the brave and noble 
men in our Congress, who, in the more sublime battle of ideas, of thoughts, 
and of principles, unawed by influence and unbribed by gain, have so grand- 
ly sustained the principles for which our heroes died. 

Resolved, That while, with state pride and tender feelings, we remember 
the " empty sleeve" of our own immortal Howard, it is with emotion too 
deep for expression that we think of the now vacant chair that the honest 
Abraham Lincoln left for his marble tomb among his friends, at Springfield, 
Illinois. — Minutes East Maine Conference, p. 24. 

East Maine Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Wiscasset, Me., commencing May 2, 1867 : 

Resolved, That while we give thanks to God for what he has wrought in 
this nation by the extinguishment of the terrible crime of slavery in its legal 
forms, we take to ourselves shame that so much of its foul spirit remains in 
all sections of the country, in the high places of power, and especially in the 
executive department of the government. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



17 



Resolved, That we deprecate and denounce caste in every form, as contrary 
to the spirit and principles of the Church of Christ ; and equality of rights, 
without distinction of race or color, shall ever have our sanction and sup- 
port. 

Resolved, That the basis presented to Congress for the restoration of the 
late rebel States to full fellowship in the brotherhood of States is magnani- 
mous and just, as has our hearty sanction and support. 

Resolved, That we hail with joy the indications in the South of a disposition 
to accept the terms offered, and with equal sorrow and disgust the machina- 
tions of Andrew Johnson and his slavery -loving partizans of the North, 
who are seeking to prevent an honorable, just, and brotherly re -union on 
this basis. — Minutes East Maine Conference, p. 19. 

Vermont Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Newburg, Vermont, April 17-23, 1867: 

Civil governments are ordained of God, and should be founded on the 
immutable principles of justice, if we would see them permanently establish- 
ed and prosperous. Our fathers designed to establish this government on 
this broad basis, but unfortunately the constitution adopted was so framed 
that many construed it as allowing slavery. As the result of this, slavery 
in process of time became the ruling power of the nation, and sought, through 
its abettors, with its treasonable hands to tear down the glorious temple of 
our liberty, and bury it in oblivion. This work of destruction, attempted 
on the part of bloody and ungrateful traitors against humanity, culminated 
in a civil war, which lasted for four years, slaughtered hundreds of thou- 
sands of our noblest sons, filled the land with mourning, and created a na- 
tional debt of some three billions of dollars. 

Oppressors would not allow the Gospel to strike off the chains from the 
limbs of four millions of slaves, and God suffered the sword to do this glorious 
work. 

Their former oppressors, however, have sought to retain the spirit of 
slavery ; but, thanks be to God, Congress has manfully faced this treason 
against civil and religious liberty, and caused it to quail ; and hope is now 
entertained that this nation will not only be free from all oppression in 
form, but in spirit, forever hereafter ; but that the elective franchise will be 
granted to all men of every color. 

Justice to the colored race demands this at the hands of this government, 
as they have bravely fought to save the nation from utter ruin, — justice to 
them as children of a common Father. 

In conclusion, we, as a Conference, would express our gratitude to God 
for His mercies vouchsafed to our beloved country during the past ecclesi- 
astical year, especially that He has so controlled the passions of men, that 
amid the discordant elements existing among us, the peace of the country 
has been so little disturbed, that He has given to our national legislators the 
courage and firmness to insist on the exclusion of traitors from all participa- 
tion in the administration of civil government, and wisdom to enact efficient 
laws for the preservation of order in the rebellious States, and that He is so 
over-ruling and directing affairs, that the people of all sections of the coun- 
try are evincing an increasing desire for national union, according to the 
terms prescribed by Congress. — Minutes Vermont Conference, pp. 38, 39. 

Providence Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Provincetown, Mass., April 2-7, 1862 : 

Resolved, That we have undiminished confidence in the integrity, patriot- 
ism, and firmness of the President of these United States. 

3 



18 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Resolved, That we hail with pleasure and heartily endorse the late eman- 
cipation message of the President, as an important step in the right direction. 

Resolved, That, in our judgment, it is the duty of Congress to immediately 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. 

Resolved, That we regard slavery as the direct cause of the present un- 
happy and wicked rebellion, and as such it should be abolished, to prevent 
a recurrence of a like disruption. — Minutes Providence Conference, p. 21. 

Providence Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Warren, Rhode Island, commencing March 27, 1863: 

Resolved, That we renew our expression of confidence in the chief magis- 
trate of the United States ; that we fully endorse the measures of his admin- 
istration which look to a speedy suppression of this unholy rebellion, as well 
as those which indicate a permanent removal of its cause or causes, and that 
we will continue to pray and labor for his and their success. 

Resolved, That our loyal brethren and companions in arms are occupying 
a noble position upon the page of passing history, and in the prosecution of 
their holy work do have, and shall continue to have, our deepest sympathy 
and our fervent prayers. 

Resolved, That as Christian men and citizens we hold ourselves in readi- 
ness to respond to the call of our country, through its properly constituted 
authorities, whenever it shall demand our services in suppressing this rebel- 
lion ; and that we thank the Congress of the United States for acknowledg- 
ing our loyalty as citizens, by embracing the clergy within the provisions 
of the act which placed the whole available force of the nation in the hands 
of the properly constituted authorities under the Constitution to suppress 
treason and insurrection against the government. — Minutes Providence Con- 
ference, p. 30. 

Providence Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
New London, Conn., March 23-28, 1864: 

In considering the struggle that is now going on, we are convinced 

that the Judge of all Earth is accomplishing His wise purposes in the 
chastisement of our land, and in its deliverance from an evil we have long 

deplored, and which by peaceful means we were not able to reach 

The chief magistrate, Abraham Lincoln, has our confidence, and shall have 
our support. We believe with him that slavery is the cause of the rebellion, 
and that no peace is honorable or can be lasting until it be removed. With 
this faith in our hearts, we bid him God-speed in his work of reconstruc- 
tion, as the plan is presented in his recent message. We have faith in that 
plan above any other that has claimed our attention. 

We desire also to say, in this connection, that the recent action of our 
Bishops, in sending loyal ministers to the cities and towns of the South, 
meets our entire approval. We regard the work thus to be done as impor- 
tant, not only to the Church, but also to the Nation; and we pledge our- 
selves to increased activity, that this important missionary field may be fully 
occupied. 

The opinions of this Conference on the subject of slavery have been often 
expressed in our annual gatherings. We have not changed them. The tes- 
timony borne in other years against its existence in church and state is upon 
the record. We would not blot a single line from the page. We only de- 
sire to renew it, and to abide by the pledges heretofore made. 

It affords us sincere gratification to learn that our ministers and members 
in the border Conferences have at last planted themselves with us on the 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



19 



anti-slavery platform. Their recent action, by which they withdraw their 
protests and cease their opposition to the principles of the chapter on slavery, 
is a noble testimony to the truth for which we have so long plead. From 
this day forth we shall stand side by side in our warfare against oppression, 
and in our efforts to give equal rights to all. 

In conclusion we would say that it is the judgment of this Conference that 
the present war should be vigorously prosecuted until the nation be saved. 
We see no other way to avert the evils still more terrible and wars yet more 
bloody that threaten to come upon us as the fruit of compromise and cow- 
ardice. — Minutes Providence Conference, pp. 29, 30. 

Providence Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Bristol, Rhode Island, commencing March 21, 1866: 

As the result of the war, we behold four millions of slaves suddenly trans- 
formed into citizens. This is the grandest political fact in the history of na- 
tions. Placed in the scale with its consequent coming benefits to the whole 
country, and weighed against its cost in treasure and blood, we count it not 
too dearly bought. It has lifted a curse from the breast of the nation, set 
the great clock of the world many hours forward, and greatly accelerated 
the march of Christianity. Humanity claps its hands, and shouts Hallelu- 
jah over it : we add our heartiest Amen. " Glory to God in the highest," 
whose power hath wrought this mighty fact ! 

The emancipation of four millions of slaves imposes novel duties on the 
nation and on the Church. Having made them free, the Government is un- 
der obligation to protect them in the exercise of their newly acquired rights 
and privileges. It is bound to make them the equals, before the law, of 
their late oppressors. Their equality at the ballot-box should be the price 
of amnesty to rebels. By adding equality to liberty, the Government will 
do much toward producing fraternity between the freedman and his late 
oppressors, and also between the vanquished and victorious States. In the 
restoration of fraternity, upon the basis of liberty and equality, we see the 
surest guaranty of perennial peace. — Minutes Providence Conference, p. 29. 

Providence Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Providence, Rhode Island, commencing March 27, 1867: 

In reviewing the condition of our country during the year past, we see 
much to cheer the hearts and encourage the hopes of loyal Christian men. 
The nation, in spite of many obstacles has made real progress in the path of 
the righteous reconstruction of the lately rebel States. Instead of submit- 
ting to the guidance of the crooked and timid policy of an unprincipled ex- 
pediency, Congress, after long hesitation, finally planted itself upon the broad 
principles of liberty and equality. It has consummated the great act of 
emancipation by placing the ballot in the hands of men long counted as 
chattels. The lately rebellious States are to be restored to their ancient 
status, not by their disloyal and formerly dominant classes, but by their loy- 
al manhood, without distinction of caste or color. Their political life is to 
flow, not from the white man or the colored man, but from men of all colors. 
Henceforth caste is to be swallowed up by manhood, and loyalty is to be 
esteemed more than color. — Minutes Providence Conference, p. 21. 

Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Al- 
bion, New York, commencing October 16, 1861 : 

Resolved, That the true ground and cause of the Southern rebellion is found 
in the natural and inevitable antagonism of those institutions which rest on 



20 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



the foundation of social and political inequality and slavery on the one hand, 
and those institutions which guarantee to every man freedom in these re- 
spects on the other ; and that permanent peace, and a common national in- 
terest, and a homogeneous nationality of character, never can be reached, 
until the one or the other of these principles shall become the dominant and 
prevailing sentiment throughout the length and breadth of our country. 

Resolved, That in our opinion, the present war is practically to settle the 
question referred to in the foregoing resolution, and that this consideration 
invests it with the greatest possible importance, rendering it a new battle, 
in the sight of the nations, of liberty, of opinion and conscience ; a liberty 
which can be rendered secure only by the maintenance of just law and 
moral order. 

Resolved, That whatever Constitutional guarantees may have been war- 
ranted, by the independence of State authorities over their domestic institu- 
tions, for the security of slave property in slave States before the rebellion, 
such guarantees ought to be considered wholly and forever forfeited in the 
case of every rebel against the Government ; and that such legislative and 
military action as may be necessary to render such forfeiture effective in the 
liberation of the slaves of all rebels, is demanded by the exigencies of the 
case. — Minutes Genesee Conference, p. 14. 

Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Ba- 

tavia, New York, commencing October 1, 1862: 

Resolved, That as members of the Genesee Annual Conference, of the M. 
E. Church, in Conference assembled — We do heartily pledge ourselves to 
the President of the United States, to sustain him in the discharge of all his 
Constitutional duties; and we do respectfully urge upon him an earnest 
prosecution of the war to crush out this rebellion, by all the authority vested 
in him by the Constitution ; also, by the use of all the means at his command 
as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. 

Resolved, That we most heartily approve of the late Proclamation of the 
President of the United States, declaring those persons that may be held as 
slaves in the States and parts of States that may, on the first day of January, 
1863, be in rebellion, forever free — as being a necessary war measure, and 
directly calculated to bring about sure and lasting peace, by removing the 
great cause of our past national disturbances and of the present Civil War. 
— Minutes Genesee Conference, pp. 12, 13. 

Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Rush- 
ford, New York, commencing October 1, 1863: 

Resolved, That we most heartily approve of the efforts which have been, 
and are being made, by the President of the United States to maintain the 
government and put down rebellion, by the use of any and every means in 
his power ; and we believe it to be the solemn duty of every man to en- 
courage and sustain the Administration in this noble work. 

Resolved, That we most heartily endorse the Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion issued by the President ; and we will continue to pray for the speedy 
and utter extinction of slavery in every part of our land. — Minutes Genesee 
Conference, p. 10. 

Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Lima, 
New York, October 6-10, 1864: 

Resolved, That it is the decided and deliberately-formed opinion of this 
Conference, that the profound and radical issues, which in the present elec- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



21 



tion canvas are to be met and decided by American citizens at the ballot-box, 
inasmuch as they concern the very foundations of the Republic, upon whose 
continued existence the prosperity of the cause of Christ and the well-being 
of society so largely depend, entirely transcend the ordinary sphere of party 
politics, and belong to the sphere of morals ; and, by virtue of the principles 
they involve, they necessarily divide the people into two great parties which 
swallow up all minor partisan distinctions, viz, Patriots and Traitors. 

Resolved, That we are constrained, as we think all intelligent Christians 
must be, by our serine of justice, our views of religious obligation, our love 
of liberty, our regard for the public welfare, and our desire for the onward 
progress of Christianity and Christian civilization, to take our stand firmly, 
uncompromisingly and with energetic resolve, with the patriotic portion of 
our fellow citizens who are determined to preserve our nationality, and to 
defend the constitutional authority of the Federal Government to the last. 

Resolved, That we cannot believe there is a traitor enjoying membership 
in this body which has been thus far so justly distinguished for the intense 
and out-spoken character of its patriotism. Certainly, we would not long 
allow ourselves to be disgraced by ecclesiastical brotherhood with any man, 
so reckless of all moral and religious obligation, as, in this hour of our na- 
tional peril, to side with the enemies of the Republic. We would not re- 
ceive into our Conference any one whose patriotism could justly be called 
in question ; nor will we tolerate among us any man of doubtful loyalty. 

Resolved, That our idea of a Christian Patriot is, one who believes in, and 
prays for, the success of the national cause ; who gives aid and encourage- 
ment to the authorities of the government in their efforts to subdue the re- 
bellion ; who believes in overcoming a forcible attempt to destroy the Re- 
public and erect upon its ruins a slaveholding despotism, by the employment 
of all the physical and moral resources of the nation ; and who is in favor 
of continuing the struggle for the maintenance of Federal supremacy and 
territorial integrity, until they who began this strife with the purpose of 
founding a political organization based on slavery and atheism, are ready 
to lay down their arms and make an unconditional surrender. And, on the 
other hand, he who delights in villifying the character of our faithful Execu- 
tive and his administration, rejoices in disaster to the National arms, and 
is depressed at the news of Rebel defeat — who seeks to repress the ardor of 
patriotic enthusiasm among the people by depicting the hopelessness of the 
Union cause, approves the virtual recognition of the Rebel government by 
advocating an armistice, especially when now the Rebellion is tottering to 
its fall, favors virtual surrender to the public enemy by advising the propo- 
sal to them of terms of conciliation, and in effect approves of the abandon- 
ment and dissolution of the old Union and Constitution by proposing an ul- 
timate convention of the States for the purpose of forming a new Union 
upon conditions dictated by slaveholding Rebels, we can but regard as an 
enemy to the government, and as differing from those who are arrayed in 
army against it only in that he has not the manliness and courage to fight 
for his principles. 

Resolved, That, as American citizens, in the exercise of our right of fran- 
chise, we will, at the approaching election, vote in accordance with the sen- 
timents and principles above expressed. — Minutes Genesee Conference, pp. 
12, 13. 

Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Buf- 
falo, New York, October 4-10, 1865 : 

Resolved, That the uniform loyalty to the government of the millions so 
lately held in Southern slavery, their timely and efficient co-operation in 



22 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



subduing the rebellion, together with the accomplished fact of their conceded 
emancipation, legitimately entitle them to a full and impartial enfranchise- 
ment, guaranteeing to them, in common with all other American citizens, 
and on the same basis, entire equality of right and privilege before the law. 

— Minutes Genesee Conference, p. 35. 

East Genesee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Newark, New York, commencing August 29, 1866: 

The present condition of our country is peculiar, and, to every patriotic 
heart, alarming. A gigantic rebellion, instigated by the spirit and prosecu- 
ted in the interests of slavery, has indeed been subdued by force of arms, 
and at an enormous cost of blood and treasure. Slavery, as an institution 
recognized in State Constitutions and regulated by State legislation, has been 
abolished. But there is mournful evidence that its virus is by no means 
eliminated from the Southern mind and heart, and we are admonished by 
terrible events that multiplied securities are required to prevent speedy re- 
lapse into a condition of things which may be even worse than that which 
preceeded the war. At such a time it is matter of regret to all good citizens 
that anything of serious antagonism should arise between the different de- 
partments of government. No political principle can be clearer than that, 
in a republican government, the law-making representatives of the people 
and the States are supreme over all other officers and departments of the 

complex organization As the English nation has made itself glorious 

before the world by its love of freedom and defense of popular rights against 
the intrusive claims of its earlier kings, so is this American people called 
upon to complete the glory of its recent victories by a further and yet sub- 
limer triumph over its own assuming and pragmatical servants. In such a 
crisis, more than in any other that we have been called to pass, is there a 
demand upon the people for cool, just thinking, for fervent, faithful prayer, 
and then for prompt, courageous action. 

We, therefore, the pastors of a numerous flock of Christian citizens, obli- 
gated and desirous, so far as in us lies, to lead our people in the path of all 
religious and moral duty, do resolve, 

First, That our primal allegiance is due to the general Congress of 
these United States as the representative of the people's sovereignty. 

Second, That the general legislation of our present Congress during its 
recent session, is of such a character as commends its authority to the hearts 
of a free and generous people. 

Third, That we will do what we can, and all that we can, to secure the 
permanent reconstruction of our shattered nationality upon the basis pro- 
posed by the law-making power. — Minutes East Genesee Conference, pp. 16, 17. 

Black River Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 

Fulton, New York, April 19-25, 1866 : 

Resolved, 2d, That we will sustain in all proper ways, such legislation as rec- 
ognizes the doctrine " that all men are born free and equal," and which se- 
cures to all people equal rights and privileges. 

Resolved, 3d, That the measures adopted by the present Congress, especially 
that act by which the Civil Rights bill was passed over the President's veto, 
are the exponents of a policy which accords with the Constitution of the 
United States, and the dearest interests of humanity, and will have a tenden- 
cy not only to prevent a return of the evils that have threatened our coun- 
try's ruin, but will be promotive of permanent peace and national prosperi- 
ty. — Minnies Black River Conference, p. 31. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



23 



Black River Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Syracuse, New York, April 17-24, 1867 : 

First, That, as the servants of God and His Church, we are deeply sen- 
sible of our responsibilities, both to the Church and nation. 

Second, That a government based on the doctrine of " equal rights " is 
adapted only to an intelligent and virtuous people, and, therefore, the Church 
and the government should seek to promote their intellectual and moral 
elevation, so that " wisdom and knowledge may be the stability of our times, 
and the strength of our salvation." 

Third, That the measures of re -construction adopted by the late Con- 
gress, are the exponents of a policy which accords with the principles of our 
government and the dearest interests of humanity, and will have a tendency 
not only to prevent a return of the evils that have threatened our country's 
ruin, but will be promotive of peace and national prosperity. — Minutes Black 
River Conference, yyp. 116, 117. 



Oneida Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Utica, 
New York, April 17-24, 1867 : 

1, That in the return of peace and the abolition of slavery, where- 
by millions of human beings were made free, we clearly recognize the hand 
of God. 

2, That in the maintenance and growth of the great principles of 
freedom and equality in our own country and throughout the world, we find 
cause for gratitude and encouragement. 

3, That we heartily endorse the doings of Congress looking to the 
reconstruction of the lately rebellious States, and we hereby tender them our 
special thanks for the passage of the military reconstruction act over the veto. 

4, That in our judgment the elective franchise should be extended 
to all men upon the same conditions, and that to give the ballot to a black 
man South, and withhold it from him at the North, is a glaring inconsisten- 
cy, and a crime. 

5, That while we believe in showing mercy, we also believe in the 
administration of justice, and therefore we fully concur in the doctrine as 
formerly taught by Andrew Johnson, that treason is a crime, and that trait- 
ors should be impoverished and punished. — Minutes Oneida Conference, p. 53. 



New York Conference — Adopted by the session held in 

New York City, April 3-10, 1867 : 

Resolved, That we gratefully recognize the good hand of God in so con- 
trolling the conflicting elements at work in our country, and especially in so 
guiding the legislation of our National Congress, as to prepare the way for 
the reconstruction of the Union on principles consonant with justice and 
promotive of the perpetuity and elevation of our free institutions. 

Resolved, That, " with malice toward none, and with charity for all," the 
people, and especially the Christian people of the North, ought by all pro- 
per means to demonstrate the spirit of brotherly kindness towards the South, 
not forgetting that the lowly millions who have always loved the flag are 
pre-eminently entitled to sympathy and help, nor that justice is only the 
sure foundation for charity. 



24 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Resolved, That the race which has evinced such meekness under protract- 
ed oppression and proscription, and such heroism on the battle-field, is en- 
titled to all the immunities of manhood, and that the pulpit and press, and 
every other agency for the moulding of public opinion, should be earnestly 
employed to mitigate the unchristian and inhuman prejudice against that 
race. 

Resolved, That the educational and religious interests of the New South, 
now emerging from the chaos of civil war, are among the highest interests 
of the whole country : and that we, therefore, cordially approve of the 
prominence given to the interests by the Missionary, Church Extension, and 
Freedmen's Aid Societies of our Church. — Minutes New York Conference, 
p. 37. 

New Yoek East Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
in Brooklyn, New York, commencing April 1, 1868 : 

The same convictions which led this Conference to give its unwavering 
support to the government of our nation when engaged in suppressing the 
recent great rebellion, and in abolishing slavery, the cause of the rebellion, 
require us now to insist upon a reconstruction of civil governments in the 
lately rebellious States upon the principles of impartial justice, and those 
only ; and we pray our national Congress not to grow weary in its good 
work. 

Resolved, That the New York East Conference in conference assembled, 
desire to express our unabated confidence in the Congress of the United 
States, in this solemn hour of the Senate's duty, and we invoke the blessing 
of Almighty God upon the Senators in the hope that they may be granted 
wisdom and firmness in the discharge of their high constitutional obligation, 
without fear or partiality. 

Resolved, "We gratefully confess the goodness of the God of nations in 
granting us deliverance in the past, and in raising up patriots among us who 
have thus far shown themselves equal to the emergencies of the present ; 
and in him shall be our trust for the future, in devout faith and prayer that 
the day may not be far distant when equal justice and righteousness, both in 
legislation and administration, shall diffuse the blessings of liberty, morality, 
and fraternity over our entire and united land. — Minutes New York East 
Conference, p. 31. 

Newark Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Washington, New Jersey, March 21-27, 1866: 

Resolved, That we hail with unmingled delight and joy the deliverance of 
our country from the scourge and curse of slavery, secured in the providence 
of God by the adoption of the " Constitutional Amendment," and in the fact 
that, in the midst of our rejoicings and the exultation of the lovers of liber- 
ty in all the world, four millions of freeclmen lift up their glad songs of 
triumph. 

Resolved, That the condition of the freeclmen demands and should receive 
our cordial sympathy ; that the nation should regard them especially as its 
" wards," thrown upon its care and deserving its protection, recognizing 
their manhood and the rights pertaining thereto. 

Resolved, That in the glorious work of grace which the great Head of the 
Church has vouchsafed us, we recognize an evidence not to be disputed that 
God approves the patriotic attitude of the Church during the late fearful 
civil war, and the fidelity with which it has adhered to the principles of 
freedom, humanity, and religion. — Minutes Newark Conference, pp. 24, 25. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



25 



New Jersey Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Burlington, New Jersey, commencing March 18, 1863: 

Resolved, 1st, That as the powers that be are ordained of God, and the Dis- 
cipline of our Church recognizes the United States of America a sovereign 
and independent Nation, our supreme allegiance is due to the National Gov- 
ernment of said States, as assumed in the declaration of the Constitution, 
ratified and established by said United States, viz. : " This Constitution and 
the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, 
shall be the supreme law of the land, and the Judges in every State shall be 
bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the con- 
trary notwithstanding." 

Resolved, 2d, That Christian loyalty to the Government requires submis- 
sion to and co-operation with the authorities duly appointed to administer 
its affairs, within the limits prescribed by the Constitution. 

Resolved, 3d, That the official acts of the Executive and of the National Con- 
gress, are in harmony with the Constitution, and, as in cases supposed to be 
doubtful, the Constitution makes provision for testing their character, such 
acts in their execution are not to be opposed and resisted, but respected and 
submitted to, unless annulled or repealed by the proper constitutional tri- 
bunal. 

Resolved, 6th, That we sympathize with the President, and heads of Depart- 
ments, in this trying state and condition of our National affairs, and that 
nothing within our power to render, for the support of the Administration, 
and the most vigorous prosecution of the war for the conquest and subjuga- 
tion of the rebellion, shall be withheld. — Minutes New Jersey Conference, 
pp. 15, 16. 

New Jersey Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Camden, New Jersey, commencing March 21, 1866: 

Resolved, 4th, That we exceedingly regret that while the nation has triumph- 
ed over the most causeless and flagitious rebellion on record, no adequate 
punishment has been meted out to the prominent actors in this treason 
which has clothed the land in mourning and drenched it with the blood of 
thousands of our fellow citizens. 

Resolved, 5th, That the nation is wholly unprepared to witness the reception 
into the halls of Federal legislation of any of the notorious traitors engaged 
in the late rebellion, unwashed as they are of the blood of their countrymen, 
whom they have wickedly slain, and such a humiliating spectacle could not 
fail to afflict the heart of every patriot. 

Resolved, 6th, That we favor the representation in Congress, of those States 
lately in rebellion, by men patriotic in heart, so soon as they may be found, 
— treason having hitherto justly deprived those States of representation and 
should continue to do so until Congress is satisfied of their loyalty. — Minutes 
New Jersey Conference, pp. 26, 27. 

Wyoming Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Hyde Park, Pennsylvania, April 17-22, 1867 : 

Resolved, 1, That we hail, with gratitude to God, the late action of Con- 
gress, by which light is made to dawn upon the dark wastes of the South, 
and by which hope is made to spring up in our bosoms, that we shall wit- 
ness a complete and speedy return to allegiance and duty of those who have 

4 



26 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



been hitherto, without cause, the bitter and malignant enemies of our com- 
mon country. 

Resolved, 2, That we, as ministers of the gospel, will encourage and sup- 
port all laws, means and instrumentalities, that have for their object the so- 
cial, intellectual and moral freedom, elevation and regeneration of those who 
have been under the influence of the oppressive and degrading institution of 
American slavery. — Minutes Wyoming Conference, p. 29. 

Pittsburgh Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Washington, Pennsylvania, commencing March 1, 1866: 

1. Resolved, That we recognize the hand of the God of nations in the over- 
ruling of our destinies in the stormy hours of peril and conflict thus far, and 
to his name ascribe the glory of triumph. 

3. Resolved, Regarding as we do, those who have been thus liberated, as 
our fellow men, and not as chattels ; recognizing as we do, the hand of God 
in their deliverance ; conceding to them the possession of mental powers 
which, though criminnally repressed in their exercise, are naturally acute 
and capable of development, and remembering as we do their devotion to 
and their efforts in the cause of the Union and liberty — we claim and de- 
mand for them not only protection from the cruelties of their former mas- 
ters, but also equal rights and privileges before the law. — Minutes Pittsburg 
Conference, p. 28. 

Pittsburgh Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Massillon, Ohio, commencing March 6, 1867 : 

The state of the county is at the present time, peculiar and anomalous. — 
The war for the preservation of the Government and the Union has ceased, 
but the conflict has not terminated ; it has only been transferred from the 
field to the forum ; from the camp to the council. Ideas not armies, are the 
forces which now confront each other, and the real issue is, whether treason 
shall recover what it lost in the field, or whether the sublime truths express- 
ed in the Declaration of Independence shall have a distinct and emphatic 
recognition and application in the reconstruction of this government and its 
future administration. Your committee therefore offer for your adoption 
the following resolutions : 

Resolved, 1, That we heartily and emphatically endorse the action of the 
Thirty-ninth Congress on the question of reconstruction, and approve the 
measures adopted for the final settlement of that question. — Minutes Pitts- 
burgh Conference, p. 20. 

Pittsburgh Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, commencing March 18, 1868: 

Resolved, 1, That we do firmly adhere to the general principles touching 
civil government, which, in harmony with our 23d Article of Religion, have 
been repeatedly expressed by this Conference. 

Resolved, 2, That although we have not yet attained that desirable unity 
of sentiment and feeling which ought to characterize us as a nation, we trust 
our heavenly Father, to whose watchful providence we are indebted for our 
national existence, will cause principles of righteousness to so triumph 
throughout our land, that it will ere long be fully established. — Min. Pitts- 
burgh Canference, p. 18. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



27 



Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Colum- 
bus, Ohio, commencing September 26, 1866: 

Resolved, That the division of our people during the war into two parties, 
namely, those for and against their country, is the best test we can now ap- 
ply, and that we shall never honor living or dead destroyers of our Gov- 
ernment, as we do its dead or living defenders. 

Resolved, That we ask no better hands to cast the ballot than to uphold 
the flag, and we believe it to be both safe and just to extend equal suffrage 
now at our polls to all who wore our uniform on the battle-field. 

Resolved, That we deplore the recent and strange conflict of authority be- 
tween the executive and legislative departments of our Government, and 
its consequences, even in their present and partial measure, awaken fear of 
their further and future mischief. We are glad the approaching elections 
allow an appeal to the people, and to that tribunal we would calmly commit 
this question. — Minutes Ohio Conference, pp. 41, 42. 

North Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Wellington, Ohio, September 3-8, 1862: 

1. Resolved, That the President and Government shall have our sympathy, 
prayers and co-operation, in putting down the present rebellion, and we 
trust that wisdom from above may direct in the adoption of such measures 
as shall speedily bring peace and righteousness to the land. 

2. Resolved, That under a solemn conviction that Slavery has been the 
great cause of the war, we trust and earnestly pray that an overruling Provi- 
dence may, with the end of this conflict, bring freedom to the enslaved. 

6. Resolved, That we are proud of the universal loyalty of our ministers 
and membership to the country of our fathers, and that in the Border States, 
where the horrors of the present war are felt with the greatest severity, our 
people cling to the old flag of the nation. — Min. North Ohio Conference, p. 30. 

North Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Mount Vernon, Ohio, September 2-7, 1863: 

Resolved, That the welfare of our children, and our children's children, and 
the interests of humanity, and the rapid spread of the gospel through the 
the earth, are intimately connected with the restoration to the Union of the 
States now separate and hostile, and in our judgment this can be accomplish- 
ed by victorious armies alone. 

Resolved, That the war now ravaging our land was begun and is prose- 
cuted in the interests of slavery, and a permanent peace is an impossibility 
without an overthrow of the vile institution, for how can a christian civiliza- 
tion consort with barbarism ? 

Resolved, That we endorse the President's proclamation of emancipation, 
and only regret that all the oppressed of the nation were not made free by 
its operation. 

Resolved, That we have confidence in the integrity, patriotism and ability 
of the President and his Cabinet, and hereby pledge them our cordial sup- 
port as ministers of the gospel, in their efforts to preserve the national life. 

Resolved, That the division of this Union would be an untold calamity to 
the world, and that it may not occur we counsel the people to an uncon- 



28 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



ditional loyalty and support to the Government.— Minutes North Ohio Con- 
ference, p. 31. 

North Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Elyria, Ohio, September 6-11, 1865: 

1. Resolved, That we hail with joy the fact that slavery has received its 
mortal wound ; we rejoice to see it writhe in the agonies of death, and trust 
that it is buried so deep that the light of a resurrection can never dawn 
upon it. 

2. Resolved, That we are in favor of allowing the freedmen the elective 
franchise, believing that all governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. 

4. Resolved, That as a Conference we respectfully request the General As- 
sembly of the State of Ohio to so amend the election laws of the State as 
not to require a residence of thirty days in a county, and twenty in a ward 
or township, as a qualification for voting in the case of Ministers who are 
sent by the appointing powers of the various Churches to their fields of 
labor. 

5. Resolved, That S. Mower be appointed to present the fourth resolution 
to the General Assembly of our State at its approaching session. — Minutes 
North Ohio Conference, pp. 18,19. 

North Ohio Conference.— Adopted by the session held at 
Mansfield, Ohio, commencing August 29, 1866: 

Resolved, That it is the imperative duty of all christian patriots to strain 
every nerve, to bend every energy, and to work unceasingly to vindicate 
the policy and principles of the National Government, as interpreted and 
enforced by the late war. 

Resolved, That the efforts now being made to proscribe Union men, and 
to galvanize into a ghastly existence the detested party of disunion, is a fear- 
ful violation of the most solemn vows, made to the loyal masses of the coun- 
try on the steps of the Capitol at Washington, and elsewhere, that treason 
must be made odious, and traitors must be punished. 

Resolved, That we heartily endorse the bold and patriotic action of Con- 
gress in passing the amendment to the Constitution, the Civil Right's Bill, 
and in recommending a modification of the neutrality laws. These meas- 
ures are a liberal, safe and proper adjustment of our national difficulties, at 
home and abroad. — Minutes North Ohio Conference, p. 19. 

North Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Tiffin, Ohio, commencing August 28, 186V : 

During the war the northern pulpit was for the country. Had it been 
otherwise, the result might have been different from what it is. Battallions, 
cannon, muskets and swords were essential, and prayers and the power of 
the pulpit were equally essential. 

Resolved, (1) That we will stand by the government in the difficult and 
important work of reconstruction, so long as that work is conducted consti- 
tutionally, justly and mercifully, ever praying that this country may become 
truly the land of the free and the home of the brave. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



29 



Resolved, (2) That we sympathize with those noble Ohioans, the firm Stan- 
ton and the fiery Sheridan, who, as we believe have been displaced from 
their positions because of their fidelity to their country. They are true 
noblemen and we honor and love them. 

Resolved, (3) That in the recent correspondence between the President and 
Gen. Grant, we recognize in the latter firmness, wisdom, ststesmanship and 
true patriotism. 

May he ever have grace according to his day and trial. 

Resolved, (4) That we will do do what we can by precept and example and 
votes to put all loyal men without distinction of color in possession of the 
right of suffrage. — Minutes North Ohio Conference, p. 23. 

Central Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Gallon, Ohio, commencing August 29, 1866: 

It is not to be expected that the spirit that animated our country to arms 
and bloody warfare for four long years, should become quiet in a day. 
Yet we regret that the spirit which manifested itself at Fort Pillow and else- 
where, in murderous warfare unprecedented in the world's history, has not 
only burst forth with all its former hate and destructiveness at Memphis and 
New Orleans, but stands unrebuked by the authority of the Government. 

We declare our warmest sympathy for the loyal men of the South, and 
protest against this wholesale slaughter of freedmen and loyal white men, 
and call, in the name of bleeding humanity, for Executive interference to 
protect the innocent and punish the guilty. 

We declare ourselves as ever loyal to our Government, and that, whether 
in time of peace, or in time of war, the Methodist Episcopal Church will 
ever be found the firm supporter of equal rights, liberty, and law. — Minutes 
Central Ohio Conference, p. 33. 

Central Ohio Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Fostoria, Ohio, commencing August 28, 1867 : 

We believe that the beligerent States should be reconstructed according 
to the plan proposed by Congress, and we look forward with hope to the 
time when this reconstruction shall be consummated, and every loyal citi- 
zen enjoy equality before the law and the right of suffrage. 

It is a source of humiliation that there should be a difference between the 
legislative and the executive departments of our Government, and that this 
difference should manifest itself so frequently upon the part of the latter by 
arbitrarily removing good men from office whose only offense is that of car- 
rying out the enactments of Congress and the wishes of the great loyal heart 
of the country. But it is to be hoped that at no distant day this difficulty 
will be removed, when passion will no longer oppose reason, or obstinacy 
common-sense, and the two departments be one in feeling, one in design, 
and one in honest effort. 

We trust the great National debt, the reflex of the war, will continue to 
be met with promptitude, and that at no distant day we shall see it all can- 
celed. 

2. The reconstruction of society in the South demands " loyal John-Wes- 
ley Methodism." The millions of loyal blacks and whites in the South have 
looked to our bullets for deliverance, to our Bibles for salvation, to our min- 
isters for the bread of life, and to our Church Extension Society for the house 
of prayer. Dare we, can we desert them in their extremity ? Should we 
forget them, mildew and the blight might fall upon our fields and barren- 
ness upon our hearts. — Minutes Central Ohio Conference, pp. 29, 30. 



30 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Cincinnati Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Ripley, Ohio, commencing August 29, 1866 : 

4. We rejoice evermore and feel profoundly grateful to Almighty God, 
that the iniquitous system of negro slavery— that prolific cause of 'crimes 
innumerable ; of misery and woe the most poignant ; of alienation and strife 
the most bitter ; and of the most mischievous and heretical doctrines of State 
sovereignty and secession — has been forever abolished. 

7. We highly deprecate tl\e corrupting influence of the Government pat- 
ronage bestowed for political purposes, and despair of its cure till that pow- 
er is either limited or exercised " by and with the advise and consent of the 
Senate" of the United States. 

9. We rejoice with pardonable pride at the decided and noble attitude our 
Church has assumed toward the great questions of to-day. During the 
darkest hours of the late war she has given to the Government a hearty and 
unequivocal support, both as to her sympathies and prayers, and as to her 
material resources. She has made for herself a record that will reflect credit 
and honor upon herself in generations to come. And even now, while the 
the momentous question of reconstruction is upon us, she dares to advocate 
the doctrine that none but men of thorough loyalty and tried patriotism 
should hold the reigns of our Government and receive its patronage. 

4. Resolved, That we rejoice at all those measures adopted by our late 
National Legislature which tend to restore and maintain the integrity of the 
Union, and secure to all men their God-given rights. 

5. Resolved, That it is the duty of Christian men to make their influence 
felt in our primary political meetings and at the polls, so as to secure the 
nomination and election of men of high moral character and of tried patriot- 
ism — men who " fear God and work righteousness." 

6. Resolved, That it is our duty to guard with sleepless vigilance our great 
national interests, for which our heroic soldiers — both the living and the 
dead — have' periled their all. — Minutes Cincinnati Conference, pp. 35, 36. 



Cincinnati Confeeence. — Adopted by the session held at 
Urbana, Ohio, commencing August 28, 1867 : 

1. Resolved, That we heartily approve the reconstruction acts of our Na- 
tional Congress, especially those measures which aim to make all men equal 
before the law. 

2. Resolved, That we deprecate the apparent determination of the Presi- 
dent of the United States to misinterpret and refuse to execute, according to 
the true meaning and intent, the laws of Congress respecting reconstruction, 
and his removal of certain executive officers who have sought to accomplish 
faithfully the will of Congress and of the loyal people of the land. 

3. Resolved, That we reject the political heresy of " State Rights," and that 
we indorse fully the wholesome and patriotic declaration of Chief Justice 
Marshall, that "America is my country, and Congress is my government." 

4. Resolved, That we lament the endeavors of a partisan press and the 
itinerating advocates of leniency to traitors, stipulated by the policy and 
suggestions of our President, to injure the public credit by their persistent 
clamors for a repudiation of our National liabilities. 

5. Resolved, That we will never consent to a relinquishment of those high 
objects which were gained at such a sacrifice of blood and treasure through 
the conflict of loyal with rebel forces in the field. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 





31 



6 Resolved, That in our prayerful judgment, " treason should be made 
odious " and " traitors" of high degree should henceforth be made to occupy 
"back seats" in the conduct of public affairs till the spirit of loyalty takes 
the place within them of hatred to the principles of republican equality. 

7. Resolved, That we extend our sincere sympathy to those officers of the 
Government whose honest endeavors to do right have subjected them to the 
maledictions of a perverse executive ; and we call upon Congress and the 
General of our armies to continue to stand firm in their attitude of opposi- 
tion to traitors and to " heady" wickedness in high places. 

8. Resolved, That the protracted disturbance of our public affairs demands 
a rigid inquiry into the prime causes of that protracted disturbance and a 
prompt enforcement of the constitutional provision for impeachment against 
any officer of the Government to whom it may justly be applied. 

10. Resolved, That the great Christian Commonwealth of Ohio ought to 
purge itself at once and forever of all unrighteous discriminations between 
the men of high and low degree among its loyal citizens, and that we there- 
fore approve heartily the pending amendment which proposes to strike out 
the word " white" from the Constitution of the State.— Minutes Cincinnati 
Conference, pp. 43, 44. 

North Indiana Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
at Wabash, Indiana, commencing April 9, 1863: 

1. Resolved, That we hereby reaffirm every position taken and every sen- 
timent expressed in the action of this Conference at its last annual session, 
touching the great struggle in which our country then was and still is en- 
gaged. 

2. That our confidence in the final result is unabated ; and that in that re- 
sult, come ichen it may, we now see, more clearly than ever, a final settlement 
of the question of slavery and freedom in this land, and the full establish- 
ment and recognition of the principle that " God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." 

3. That it is matter of devout rejoicing and gratulation that, with us, as a 
Conference, there is entire unity of sentiment and feeling upon this subject. 
The taint of disloyalty is not to be found upon us, and, by the grace of God, 
so wiU we keep ourselves. — Minutes Worth Indiana Conference, p. 28. 



North- West Indiana Conference. — Adopted by the session 
held at Laporte, Indiana, commencing August 29, 1866: 

3. That we look to the Congress of the United States, the law making 
power of the government, as the chief instrumentality in the hands of a 
merciful Providence, for the preservation and conservation of the unity of 
our Republic ; and to its measures we give our most cordial approval and 
support. 

4. While we are compelled to express regret that, as we believe, the policy 
of the President tends to embolden the enemies of the government, and 
thereby endangers and places in jeopardy the lives of the loyal men of the 
South, and has already, as we believe, caused the death of many true, brave, 
and Christian Union men, yet we will continue to pray that he may be 
guided by Divine power in all righteous and just measures he may adopt, to 
secure the perpetuity of our free institutions, and the maintenance of our 
National Constitution. — Minutes North- West Indiana Conference, p. 34. 



32 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



North- West Indiana Conference. — Adopted by the session 
held at Danville, Indiana, commencing September 11, 1867 : 

Resolved, 1st. That we can not, without recreancy to the sacred trust com- 
mitted to us, refuse to defend, with all the sanctions of religion, the manhood 
rights that inhere in our common humanity. 

2d. That we deprecate the course of the Chief Executive in his apparent 
determination to enforce his, policy contrary to the clearly expressed wish 
of the people. 

3d. That we believe, with the General of the United States armies, that 
the will of the people is the supreme law of the land. 

4th. That we sustain Congress in any and all measures deemed necessary 
to effectually crush out the spirit of rebellion that has already cost the coun- 
try so dearly, and would again deluge our land in blood. — Minutes North- 
West Indiana Conference, p. 35. 

South-Eastern Indiana Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Aurora, Indiana, September 19-24, 1866: 

* 

1. Resolved, That we will pray for the President of the United States, that 
God may direct and control him in the performance of his responsible duties ; 
that he may not be led by the blind impulses of passion and appetite ; that 
he may not be governed by the counsels of bad men ; but that he may be- 
come, what God intends he should be, " a terror to evil-doers, and a praise 
to them that do well." 

2. Resolved, For the Congress of the United States we will pray, that they 
may be guided and sustained in their loyal efforts for such reconstruction of 
the rebel States as shall give a permanent and lasting peace. 

3. Resolved, That we sympathize with the millions of freedmen who, amid 
innumerable difficulties and oppositions, are struggling for an enlightened 
and Christian civilization, and we promise them our prayers and material 
aid. — Minutes South-Eastern Indiana Conference, pp. 24, 25. 



South-Eastern Indiana Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Connersville, Indiana, September 11-16, 1867 : 

1. Resolved, That we hereby re-affirm the action of this Conference at its 
former sessions, in reference to the interest, the welfare, the integrity and 
the unity of our beloved country. 

2. Resolved, That we heartily approve the efforts of the late, and also of 
the present Congress, to reconstruct the States recently in open rebellion 
against the authority of the United States. 

3. Resolved, That while we rejoice that by legal and competent authority 
of the General Government, liberty has been proclaimed throughout all the 
land, to the inhabitants thereof, we deem it essential to the full enjoyment 
of civil liberty that every citizen should be invested with equal rights and 
privileges before the law, and that manhood suffrage should, at the earliest 
practicable day, be conferred upon the loyal citizen in every State of our 
great and growing country. — Mm. South-Eastern Indiana Conference, p. 88. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



33 



Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Bloom- 
ington, Illinois, commencing October 9, 1862 : 

Whereas, Certain States have offered armed resistance to the execution 
of the laws by the legally chosen Executive ; and, 

Whereas, This resistance has resulted in one of the most fearful and deso 
lating wars found upon the page of history ; therefore, 

Resolved, 1st. That in the judgment of this Conference, such States, while 
in a state of rebellion, have voluntarily ignored, and actually forfeited all 
the rights that loyal States may claim under the Constitution. 

2nd. That we hereby pledge our warmest sympathies, and heartiest co- 
operation to the Government, in the adoption and use of all means sanction- 
ed by the Word of God, in striking down in the most effectual way, and in 
the shortest possible time, the power that aims a blow no less at our holy 
Christianity than at our republican institutions. 

3rd. That while we regard the present rebellion as the legitimate outgrowth 
of the accursed system of human slavery, we regard the proclamation of the 
President of the United States touching the relation of master and slave 
upon the 1st day of January, 1863, as an act worthy of the greatest states- 
man of the age, clearly sanctioned by the teachings of God's truth, and as an 
act of unequaled potency in weakening the hands of the enemy, and in 
strengthening the hearts and hands of the friends of human freedom every- 
where. 

4th, That in the utterance of the proclamation by the President, and in 
the hearty endorsement it has received from loyal men of all shades of po- 
litical sentiment, we behold an unmistakable indication of the genuineness 
of the nation's repentance for the long-cherished sin of human bondage, and 
a cheering sign that the day of our redemption, (not only from sin, but from 
the consuming judgments that sin has brought upon us,) draweth nigh. 

5th. That as citizens we will cheerfully bear our proportion of the Gov- 
ernment burdens, in the payment of such taxes as may be assessed upon us ; 
that as Christians we will not fail to pray for the President and his consti- 
tutional advisers, for the success of our arms and defeat of our enemies ; and 
as Christian Ministers we will not fail to declare the whole counsel of God, 
and aid in every possible way to educate the public mind in national affairs 
up to the standard of truth and righteousness. — Min. Illinois Conference, p. 21. 

Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Spring- 
field, Illinois, October 8-13, 1863: 

Resolved, That we recognize the hand of God in this terrible war, chastis- 
ing us for our national sins. 

Resolved, That a correct understanding of the cause of the rebellion is es- 
sential to the adoption of appropriate means for its suppression. 

Resolved, That we believe slavery to be the primary cause of this wicked 
rebellion, and that we can have no security for the Union and permanent 
peace of the States so long as the evil is tolerated among us. 

Resolved, That in such times as the present, a man who withholds his hear- 
ty support from the administration, in its efforts to suppress the rebellion 
may be justly suspected of want of sympathy with and of loyaly to the gov- 
ernment of his country. 



5 



34 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Resolved, That we view the proclamation of the President, declaring free- 
dom to the slaves of rebels, as justified, not only by military necessity, but 
by the moral sense of the civilized world. 

Resolved, That in the signal victories gained by our armies since the en- 
forcement of the emancipation proclamation, we behold an indication of the 
approval of Heaven upon that measure. 

Resolved, That we cordially approve the policy of the administration in 
the enforcement of the Conscript Act, and the suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus, touching the offences against the government, and also the 
policy of arming negroes as an integral part of the national forces. 

Resolved, That with grateful hearts we rejoice over the recent victories 
which have attended our arms, by which the rebel invaders have been 
driven from Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the Mississippi river opened, 
so that it runs unvexed to the Gulf ; and that we will not cease to pray to 
Almighty God that these successes may be continued until the flag of our 
fathers shall triumphantly wave over all the land. — Minutes Illinois Confer- 
ence, pp. 26, 27. 

Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held at De- 
catur, Illinois, September 20-25, 1865: 

We regret that what is known as the three-fifths vote gives undue influence 
to southern representation, and would fain have it equalized as in our own 
State, for we are under as much obligation to see that they have a Demo- 
cratic form of government as we would be to protect them from foreign in- 
vasion. 

Your committee esteem it a privilege to again record their gratitude that the 
dark stain of slavery has been wiped from our national escutcheon, and that 
" liberty is proclaimed throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." 
And now all the rights of our common humanity are due the freedman who 
never forsook the fugitive union soldiers in the forest, or the Union flag on 
the battle field. He has a right to the reward of his own industry, and he 
should be privileged to protect that right by testimony in our courts of jus- 
tice. He is entitled to all the intellectual and moral training that are neces- 
sary to elevate him to all the privileges of citizenship and freedom. 

We rejoice in the enlarged plans that are laid and that are being carried 
out with reference to all the citizens of the south of every color and condi- 
tion, and we hope there will be inculcated among them everywhere the sen- 
timents of piety and loyalty. — Minutes Illinois Conference, p. 27. 

Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held atBloom- 
ington, Illinois, September 19-25, 1866 : 

The appointment of a committee on the state of the country argues the 
right of the Christian Church to use its influence to guard the moral issues, 
and to secure and maintain the civil and religious rights of all loyal citizens. 

But since the assembling of the Congress of the United States, last De- 
cember, the President .has gradually unveiled a course of policy that has 
awakened the deepest anxiety in every patriot heart through the land. 

He has refused to acquiesce in the will of the people, as expressed by their 
legal representatives. 

He has spoken the highest evil of a co-ordinate branch of the general gov- 
ernment, in his severe censures of the American Congress. 

He has refused to execute laws because they were not in accordance with 
his policy. 



V 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



35 



He has insinuated the overthrow of the legal and loyal Congress of the 
United States, and the substituting of a Congress of late rebels and those 
who sympathized with them, in its place. 

He has refused protection, in many instances, to loyal and philanthropic 
teachers of loyal colored people in the South. 

He has given his approbation to legislation made by the Southern States, 
so cruel and unjust to the freedmen, as to make their condition little better 
than slavery itself. 

His policy makes him responsible for the wholesale massacre of Union 
statesmen and Union citizens in the city of New Orleans. 

He has removed from office thousands of the true and tried friends of the 
country, appointed by the great and good Mr. Lincoln, and has filled many 
of their places with those whose hands were lately dripping with the blood 
of our countrymen, or those who smiled at their success. 

He is supported principally by disloyal newspapers ; and disloyal leaders, 
chagrinned with past defeat, are threatening again to renew civil strife and 
the carnage of war in our midst. 

All these bad omens, originating with the official head of the nation, lead 
us to the conclusion that if his policy is successful, "the wicked will rule, 
and the nation will mourn." 

Resolved, 1. That we feel profoundly thankful to the God of our fathers, 
that He led them to put into the creed of the M. E. Church the twenty-third 
article of religion which makes it impossible to be untrue to the government 
without being false to our religious vows, and which denies church mem- 
bership to disloyal citizens. — Minutes Illinois Conference, pp. 21, 22, 23. 

Southern Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session 
held at Centralia, Illinois, September 19-24, 1866: 

2nd, Resolved, That we have full confidence in the integrity of Congress, 
and that we heartily approve their measures for the reconstruction of the 
Union. — Minutes Southern Illinois Conference, p. 41. 



Central Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
at Lacon, Illinois, commencing August 28, 1861 : 

Resolved, 1. That we are in favor of the prosecution of the present war for 
the preservation of the Union and of constitutional liberty, until the rebel- 
lion is completely subdued, and the authority of the Government re-estab- 
lished in all the States, at whatever sacrifice of material or political interest. 
— Minutes Central Illinois Conference, p. 18. 

Central Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
at Galesburg, Illinois, September 17-22, 1862: 

2. Believing that slavery is the cause of the unnatural rebellion which is 
now wasting and desolating our country, and that there can be no perma- 
nent peace while the cause exists, we therefore most earnestly beseech the 
President of the United States to enforce, at once, the law of Congress which 
confiscates the property of rebels, and emancipates their slaves. 

3. That the President be, and is most earnestly requested, to proclaim the 
freedom of every slave in these United States. — Minutes Central Illinois Con- 
ference, p. 13. 



36 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Central Illinois Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
at Lexington, Illinois, commencing September 19, 1866: 

We are persuaded that the dominant party in the lately rebellious States, 
are not disposed to deal justly with the Freedmen, and that justice can not 
be secured to them, nor the pledges, made during the war, fulfilled, if their 
late oppressers are restored to power without restriction and restraint from 
the general government. 

We also believe that our national legislation devolves, by the Constitu- 
tion, upon the Congress of the U. S., and that each House must determine 
the qualifications of its members ; and that our present Congress, in refusing 
seats to men who are still rebels at heart, and sent from States which are 
virtually in rebellion, merits the approval of every American patriot. 
Therefore, 

Resolved, 2. That no less vigilance and earnest effort are required of Christ- 
ian patriots now, than at any time during the six years. 

Resolved, 5. That, as Ministers, we consider it not only our right, but our 
duty, to exhibit the moral bearings of political questions, and urge upon 
Christians, that religion should always modify and direct in all their political 
action. — Minutes Central Illinois Conference, pp. 29, 30. 



Rock River Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Ottawa, Illinois, commencing September 19, 1866 : 

We deplore the conduct and the speeches of our Chief Magistrate as exhibit- 
ed and uttered in his late visit to our State, conduct and speeches which con- 
verted an approach to the grave of a great statesman into a disgraceful exhi- 
bition of vulgarity and profanity, manifesting an entire disregard of both 
personal and official dignity and decency. 

Disappointed in our reasonable expectations of peace after war, we 
solemnly protest against the injustice of assailing as traitors, and declaring 
war upon, men who sustained the Government in its peril, because of their 
refusal to reward rebels by grant of increased political power. 

1. Resolved, that the grave complications which exist and are threatened 
in our civil affairs demand thoughtful consideration and increased vigilance 
on the part of the people, and such an expression of their will through the 
polls as shall rebuke the assumption of a dictatorial power by the Executive, 
and assure the world that the Government of this land is "of the people, for 
the people and by the people." 

2. That reading in the Book of the law the command " Ye shall have one 
manner of laws, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country ;" 
and remembering that freedmen of the South assisted in achieving the vic- 
tories of the war, we believe that it would be an act of the foulest injustice 
and one invoking the Divine displeasure to leave those who fought for the 
Union under the political control of those who fought against the Union, 
and we urge our solemn protest against a policy of reconstruction which has 
disarmed the friends and armed the foes of the nation and culminated in the 
atrocious massacres at Memphis and New Orleans. 

3. That we believe the time has fully come when the sense of justice in 
the North should respond to the cry for protection of loyal men in the South, 
and ordain impartial suffrage for all men unstained with crime. — Minutes 
Rock River Conference, p. 27. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



37 



Foue Illinois Conferences. — Adopted by a Convention of 
Ministers of the four Illinois Conferences held in Bloomington, 
Illinois, September 25, 1866: 

3. That we approve all the amendments of the Constitution adopted by- 
Congress which abolish Slavery, disfranchise the leaders of the . rebellion, 
guarantee the National War Debt, repudiate the rebel war debt, and fix the 
representation in Congress on the just and equitable basis of the voting popu- 
lation, and that we will use our utmost efforts to secure their ratification, 
remembering the injunction : " Ye shall have one manner of laws, as well 
for the stranger as for your own countrymen," and, regarding the present 
and anticipated complication of our National affairs — 

4. That we believe that the time is fully come when the sense of justice 
in the North, responding to the cry for protection coming from Loyal men 
in the South, should ordain impartial suffrage for all men unstained with 
crime. — Min. IUinois Conference for 1866, p. 24. 

Detroit Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Hud- 
son, Michigan, Sept. 5-10, 1866: 

1. Resolved, That it is the sense of this Conference that all loyal citizens, 
without distinction of race or color, should enjoy the equal protection of the 
laws. 

2. Besolved, That the double crime of perjury and treason committed by 
those who have held office under the government, and afterwards rebelled 
against it, swearing allegiance to a power designed for its overthrow, should 
forever hereafter disqualify them for any office, civil or military, in the 
United States. 

3. Resolved, That, in our opinion, any conditions of settlement between 
the Government and the rebels less stringent than these, will not meet the 
claims of justice, the approbation of God, or secure the permanent peace 
and unity of the nation. 

4. Resolved, That it is for the interest of the Government, as well as of the 
Kingdom of Christ, that our churches and free schools should be established 
as rapidly as possible in the Southern States, that, having a common educa- 
tion and a common religion, we may have a homogeneous civilization, and 
a united, permanent, and prosperous country. — Min. Detroit Confere?ice, p. 46. 

Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Ripon, Wisconsin, September 6-10, 1866: 

4. We join with the intelligent and loyal of the land, in acknowledgment 
of the patriotism, prudence and steadfastness of the national congress, in the 
performance of its duties through the present trying crisis of the nation. 

5. We confess that we share the nation's grief and mortification, that the 
national executive headship has such unfortunate representation. It is to 
us a matter of deep regret, that, when praying for the removal of obstruc- 
tions to the national prosperity, we are confronted with the unwelcome 
thought, that conspicuous among these obstructions, if not the principal, is 
the present chief executive of the nation. 

In the movement of the President and his associates through the country 
now occurring, in which is involved the nation's treasure and reputation, 



38 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



we see abundant evidence that the ostensible is not the real object, — that 
under the pretence of patriotism and nationality, partisan and mischievous 
ends are sought, by means most unusual and unmagisterial. 

The advisers and willing associates of the President in this affair, we re- 
gard as sharing with him the responsibility of the hypocracy and national 
dishonor involved. — Minutes Wisconsin Conference, p. 32. 

West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
at Hazel Green, Wisconsin, commencing August 29, 1866: 

The state of the country in the States lately in rebellion is of the most de- 
plorable character. The Executive of the United States has failed to make 
treason odious, as he promised, and the late rebels are rebels still. Whole- 
sale murders of Union men, both black and white, are being committed, and 
ten thousand freedmen, besides hundreds of whites, are said to have fallen 
victims to their cruelty. And what adds to the poignancy of our grief, is 
the fact that the policy and measures of the President seem to have given 
encouragement to those " deeds of darkness and hard earned infamy ; and 
as government troops are being removed from points of protection to loyal- 
ists, a still worse state of things is feared. 

Resolved, That in our view the policy and measures of the President, in 
reference to rebels, are highly detrimental to the permanent peace and pros- 
perity of the country. 

Resolved, That our only hope, under God, for our safety is in Congress, 
and the patriotism of the people. 

Resolved, That the fearful condition of the southern portion of our coun- 
try, demands the prayers of the Church, and the support of the Government 
by the people, as much as did the darkest hour of the war ; and we will, as 
we have done, look to and lean upon God in our perilous circumstances. — 

Minutes West Wisconsin Conference, p. 21. 

North- West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Galesville, Wisconsin, September 26-30, 1861: 

Resolved, 1. That in the opinion of the N. W. Wisconsin Conference of the 
M. E. Church, there is no just cause whatever, for the present rebellion; 
and we herein affirm our determination to stand by the Federal Government 
to the last, in its efforts to suppress the present rebellion, and to maintain in- 
tact the Union of these States. 

Resolved, 2. That we heartily endorse the letter and spirit of the late proc- 
lamation of Maj. Gen. Fremont. — Minutes North- West Wisconsin Confer- 
ence, p. 30. 

North- West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Hudson, Wisconsin, September 24-30, 1862: 

2. Resolved, That while we deplore the only alternative left us of defend- 
ing our homes and country, resisting even unto death the rampant encroach- 
ments of slave domination, we are not left without grounds of hope that 
God is thus shaking terribly the rotten system of human tyranny, that the 
last relic of heathen nations may pass away amid the clashing of arms, and 
a continent flooded with human gore. 

3. Resolved, That we hail with delight the late proclamation of the Presi- 
dent, emancipating all slaves in the rebel States after January, 1863, and 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



39 



can but contemplate it as the harbinger of returning peace and prosperity 
to our nation, already torn and distracted as the result of persistent blind- 
ness in regard to the freedom of 4,000,000 of human beings, and we herein 
pledge to the Chief Executive of the American people our hearty support 
and prayers that he may never cease his efforts for the amelioration of hu- 
* manity, until he have brought forth judgment unto victory. 

4. Resolved, That we heartily approve of the last call of the President for 
600,000 additional voluuteers, contemplating the burden necessarily laid 
upon him to sustain a nation in arms, more endurable, than the destruction 
of the constitution and laws and the final dissolution of the American Union, 
to sustain which we, like our fathers of the Revolution, pledge to each other 
u our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." — Minutes North- West Wis- 
consin Coiiference, p. 12. 

North-West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at West Eau Claire, Wisconsin, October 7-10, 1863 : 

The M. E. Church has identified herself fully with the cause of 

freedom. She has sustained the administration, endorsed the President's 
proclamation and the act of conscription, and all other measures for the vig- 
orous prosecution of the war and the suppression of the rebellion. 

Resolved, 1st. That the war of freedom should still be prosecuted with in- 
creased determination till the last rebel in arms is either captured or slain. 

Resolved, 2d. That to this end we pledge to the Government our sympa- 
thies, our prayers, " Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." — Min. 
North- West Wisconsin Conference, p. 23. 

North- West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Black River Falls, Wisconsin, Sept. 21-26, 1864: 

We deeply deplore the continuance of the civil war in our country and 
the consequent further effusion of blood and expenditure of treasure, and the 
sorrow and grief that rests upon the people of the United States. Yet we do 
not counsel an abandonment of the struggle, but a steady, crushing prosecu- 
tion of the war, until the overthrow of every disloyal element in our land, 
the complete restoration of the Union, and the establishment of the univer- 
sal equality of all men before the law, shall have been accomplished in our 
land. And inasmuch as the present Presidential contest will be one of bit- 
ter partisan strife, we recommend our brethren to stand firmly upon the 
principles above set forth, and neither by vote or otherwise countenance or 
encourage any man for any position of prominence who is not fully com- 
mitted to these principles. — Min. North- West Wisconsin Conference, p. 16. 

North-West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Menomonee, Wisconsin, September 14-18, 1865 : 

1. Resolved, That inasmuch as the Negroes are truly loyal, and as we have 
exacted of them the discharge of the duties of citizen soldiery, we ought to 
extend to them the rights of citizenship in the elective franchise. 

2. Resolved, That we will continue to yield a hearty support to all the ef- 
forts of the Administration to give effect to the Emancipation Proclamation, 
to punish treason and inhumanity, and to establish the returning Southern 
States, upon the principles of justice, liberty and true democracy. — Minutes 
North- west Wisconsin Conference, pp. 21, 22. 



40 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



North-West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Prescott, Wisconsin, September 12-1*7, 1866: 

We tremble when we see many both in church and state who by their zeal 
and devotion to the cause of liberty in former days of trial and gloom had 
ennobled and endeared themselves to a grateful people, now joining hands 
with those who still hope by intrigue and executive patronage to achieve 
that which they failed to accomplish through rebellion and war. But the 
duty of the Christian patriot is plain. Let the representatives of the people 
— " the representatives of liberty" — be sustained. Through the ballot box 
let the ranks of our noble Congress be strengthened with liberty loving 
men, men that will stand firm against executive usurpation, firm for the 
the cause of truth and the liberty of the whole people, men who only fear to 
do wrong. Therefore, 

Resolved, That we as a Conference will use our influence to procure such 
men for offices of public trust. 

2nd. That it is the duty of all patriots to stand by Congress who shall hold 
the reigns of government with an unflinching grasp until the Church with 
its Christianizing influence shall educate and elevate the mind of the South- 
ern people above the rule of Political Demagogues. 

Resolved, 3d. That we as preachers of the N. W. Wisconsin Conference 
ignore any policy in our civil government that does not recognize in the 
Freedmen, either of the South or North, the right of suffrage. 

Resolved, 4th. That we renew our efforts in the great moral and political 
conflict, to restore the Freedmen of our nation to our much cherished and 
God given rights of " Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" — Min. North- 
West Wisconsin Conference, pp. 15, 16. 

North- West Wisconsin Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Sparta, Wisconsin, September 12-16, 1867: 

Resolved, 1st. The Government of the United States was founded upon the 
moral law as given in the Decalogue therefore any theories or practices in- 
troduced here subversive of it ought to be opposed as dangerous to our in- 
stitutions and the prosperity of our Government. 

2. That we will prudently but firmly use our influence among the people 
to elevate to office only such men as reverence God's law, and oppose the 
introduction here of Intemperance and foreign Liberalism. 

3. That we deplore the unhappy variance, between the Executive and the 
Congress of our nation, and while we may not revile the ruler of our peo- 
ple, we do honor the men of Congress, who so persistently refuse to yield to 
Policy, what has so recently been dearly bought with the nation's blood and 
treasure. 

4. That impartial suffrage and equal representation are essential to the 
peace and safety of our whole country. — Min. North- West Wisconsin Con- 
ference, p. 13. 

Minnesota Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Red Wing, Minnesota, September 19-24, 1866: 

The Committee on the State of the country beg leave to report, that 
though war has ceased, yet the spirit of revolt is still alive, and that "eternal 
vigilance" is still " the price of liberty." That every attempt to institute in- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



41 



equality before the law, or to establish caste on account of color or race, 
should be resisted at the ballot box, with the same patriotic vigilance and 
zeal that crushed the rebellion on the battle-field. 

That all the obligations of benevolence, patriotism and Christianity, de- 
mand the protection of the Freedmen in all the rights of life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. And that we re-confirm the geographical lines, and 
re -endorse the constitutional law, by which all the sister States are indi visi- 
bly and perpetually bound together. But while we waive all claims of in- 
demnity for the past wrongs, we do require security for the future, before 
we restore the forfeited power to the men by whom we have been injured ; 
therefore, 

Resolved, That we heartily approve of the proposed amendment of the 
Constitution, and earnestly recommend such measures as shall protect the 
rights of the Freedmen. — Min. Minnesota Conference, pp. 45, 46. 

Iowa Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Knox- 
ville, Iowa, commencing September 26, 1866: 

1. Therefore, Resolved, That it is the duty of Christian men to attend all 
primary meetings, and secure the nomination of only good men for office. 

2. That we deplore the present unhappy difficulty between the President 
and Congress ; and cannot too deeply feel the humiliation of our nation in 
seeing the chief-magistrate passing through the country and harranguing 
the people, after the manner of the lowest politicians. 

3. That the nation owes a debt of gratitude it can never repay to those 
noble men in Congress who have so firmly adhered to the principles of loy- 
alty and justice, and maintained the government intact against rebel foes 
and a demoralizing administration. 

4. That the time has fully come when impartial suffrage and equal repre- 
sentation should be extended to all, as the only sure method of securing 
peace and safety to the whole country. 

5. That the loyal men of the South, whether black or white, deserves the 
protection of the Government and the sympathy of all patriots. 

6. That we will support no man for office who is addicted to intemperance 
or profanity, or who does not sustain, in general, a good moral character. — 
Min. Iowa Conference, p. 21. 

Iowa Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Ottumwa, 
Iowa, September 18-23, 1867 : 

2. That the nation owes a debt of gratitude it can never repay to those 
noble men in Congress and in the Military Departments, who have so firmly 
adhered to the principles of loyalty and justice, and maintained the Gov- 
ernment intact against rebel foes and a demoralized administration. 

3. that the time has fully come, when impartial suffrage and equal repre- 
rentation should be extended to all, as the only sure method of securing 
peace and safety to the whole country. 

4. That the loyal men of the South, whether black or white, deserve the 
protection of the Government and sympathy of all patriots. — Min. Iowa 
Conference, p. 26. 

6 



42 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Upper Iowa Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Decorah, Iowa, commencing September 12, 1866: 

Resolved, That we heartily endorse the course pursued by our noble Rep- 
resentatives and Senators, who, amid bribery and corruption, remained true 
to the principles of Justice, Liberty and Truth, and also of those incorrupti- 
ble patriots, late members of the Cabinet, who have severed their connection 
therewith. 

Resolved, That we believe that " Treason should be made odious," that 
all men irrespective of race and color, should be " equal before the law," 
that loyalty should rule the nation, and that States lately in rebellion should 
not be allowed representation in Congress, without the guarantees required 
by Congress. 

Resolved, That we deplore the abandonment, by our Chief Magistrate, of 
those noble principles he once avowed, arraying himself against the Legis- 
lative and Judicial departments of our Government, identifying himself with 
those lately in arms against the Government, and using all the power of Ex- 
ecutive patronage in organizing a new party upon corrupt principles, which, 
if successful, would restore traitors whose hands are red with blood, to the 
highest offices of the State and nation. 

In conclusion, we firmly believe it the duty and mission of the Christian 
Church to endeavor to secure and appropriate the whole country, with all 
its resources — its press, its wealth, and its educational institutions, for the 
spread of Christianity throughout the world. — Min. Upper lotoa Conference, 
pp. 13, 14. 

Des Moines Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Boonsboro, Iowa, August 22-27, 1866: 

Resolved, That while the fiendish, and rebellious, spirit lately manifested 
in certain parts of our country, cause us to fear that the peace of the Nation 
may again be broken, and war with all its horrors come upon us ; yet we 
have the utmost confidence in the care and justice of our Heavenly Father, 
and in the virtue and patriotism of our people. 

Resolved, That we renew our pledges of eternal fidelity to the principles of 
loyalty to the government, and the rights of all men ; and we believe the 
only way to secure and perpetuate these rig;hts, is to make all men equal be- 
fore the law. 

Resolved, That we have confidence in the integrity, wisdom, and loyalty 
of the present Congress of the United States, and we will pray that God may 
direct and encourage them in support of the principles of justice and equal 
rights. — Min. Des Moines Conference, p. 23. 

Missouri and Arkansas Conference. — Adopted by the ses- 
sion held at Independence, Missouri, commencing March 6, 1867 : 

6. As ministers of Jesus Christ, we will go forth into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature, without making unjust distinctions among 
men. We will also plead that equal civil rights be granted to all men. We 
will do what we can consistently with our high calling to secure the right of 
suffrage to the colored men of Missouri and Arkansas, and we hail with pe- 
culiar pleasure the passage of an act by the Legislature of Missouri recom- 
mending an amendment to be considered granting suffrage to all men on 
equal terms. We thank the Legislature for taking this advanced position. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



43 



7. In conclusion, we invite the colored people of Missouri and Arkansas 
to unite with us, and help us build up great, free, civilized, and Christianized 
States, and may the God of peace be with them, and bless them and us in 
our mutual work ! — Min. Missouri and Arkansas Conference, p. 47. 

Kansas Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Bald- 
win City, Kansas, commencing March 15, 1866: 

Resolved, That in the glorious victory which we have achieved, we recog- 
nize the hand of that omnipoteut Being who holds the destiny of nations at 
his bidding, and we behold in them the ascendency of those great and funda- 
mental principles of free government, the acknowledgment of those unalien- 
able rights of man, prominent among which are life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness. 

Resolved, That we again renew our devotion to these principles, which are 
now consecrated to us by the blood of so many of our brethren and fellow 
citizens ; and pledge in the future, as in the past, our cordial support to the 
Legislative, Judiciary and Executive departments of our government, in the 
maintenance thereof— ever ready to admonish them of the truth of that de- 
cree which ordains of old, that " they who do not rule in righteousness, shall 
perish from off the earth." 

Resolved, That we fully comprehend the magnitude of the field which is 
thus opened to our Church, and that we will use all our endeavors to go in 
and occupy and raise up in it a loyal people, zealous of good works unto the 
Lord. — Min. Kansas Conference, p. 37. 

Resolved, That we rejoice in the fidelity of the majority of Congress, in 
steadily opposing the admission of disloyal persons from the Southern States, 
as representatives ; and we hope that the time may never come when trea- 
son shall have a voice in making laws for the government of this country. 
—Ibid, p. 56. 

Kansas Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Man- 
hattan, Kansas, commencing March 13, 1867 : 

1. That we still "rejoice in the fidelity of Congress in steadily opposing 
the admission of disloyol persons from the Southern States as representa- 
tives ; and we hope that the time may never come when treason shall have 
a voice in making laws for the government of this country." 

2. That we fully indorse the bill recently passed by Congress dividing the 
unrepresented Southern States into military districts to be governed by the 
war power of the nation until they show that they are capable of governing 
themselves. 

3. That we are in favor of manhood suffrage, and hope our own State 
will be among the first that shall so change its fundamental law as to recog- 
nize the equality of all men without distinction of race or color at the bal- 
lot box. — Min. Kansas Conference, p. 27. 

North-Western German Conference. — Adopted by the 
session held at St. Paul, Minnesota, September 26-30, 1867 : 

(Translated from the German.) 

Whereas, Our country now, by the arbitrary course of the President, 
Andrew Johnson, everywhere is thrown into excitement, the President 
having removed officers from the most important places ; 



44 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



And, Whereas, we are opposed to such a course, which endangers the 
common welfare of the people. Therefore Resolved : 

1. That we, as a peaceable and Christian community, very much regret 
that our President has been led away by his policy in such a manner that 
he has either removed from office or transferred to other places the highest 
officers. 

2. That we heartily desire to see peace, quiet, and in consequence perma- 
nent happiness and blessing restored in all the States of the entire Union of 
the country ; but that we fear that by the Amnesty Proclamation of the Pres- 
ident, issued September 7, 1867, a great obstacle is placed in the way to the 
universal welfare of the country. 

3. That we wish happiness and God's blessing to our highly esteemed 
Congress, and that we will pray to G-od that he may give wisdom to the 
members of Congress, to adopt such means and measures that lead to the 
universal welfare of the people. — Min. North- Western German Conference, 
p. 46. 



Colorado Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Empire, Colorado, commencing June 20, 1866: 

Whereas, The victories of war may be turned to defeats in Cabinet and 
Congress. 

And Whereas, Patriots to questions of war may be traitors to principles 
of peace. 

And Whereas, Treason is a crime against national law, and odious to the 
moral sense of an enlightened Christianity, therefore 

Resolved, That we believe it to be the duty of Congress in setting up bar- 
riers against treason, to admit to equal legal and political rights all loyal 
men, whether they have or have not heretofore enjoyed such privileges. 

Resolved, That in making treason odious, its leaders should be tried and 
punished, while all traitors should be debarred from the exercise of political 
rights and suffrages, until the lapse of sufficient time and satisfactory repent- 
ance shall have wrought political regeneration from treason to loyalty. 

Resolved, That we are thankful for the success attending the efforts of our 
Church to extend the borders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the 
sections heretofore occupied by the Church South, in the establishment of 
the religion of freedom from all bonds, temporal and spiritual. — Min, Colo- 
rado Conference, p. 7. 

California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Sacramento, California, September 10-16, 1861: 

We are in favor of the most vigorous and decisive blows, however 

painful their effects, as the most merciful solution of the dreadful problem 
which the seceding States have compelled us to grapple with. 

Resolved, That in the judgment of this Conference, he who advocates non- 
resistance to rebels, is accessory to rebellion. — Minutes California Confer- 
ence, p. 32. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



45 



California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
San Francisco, California, September 10-16, 1862 : 

1. Resolved, That in the present wicked rebellion against the Government 
of the United States, we recognize the assaults of the slave power upon the 
essential rights of mankind. 

2. Resolved, That the treasonable conspiracy of wicked men, levying war 
upon the army and citizens of our common country, had no just reason or 
excuse, in either the character or history of the Government. 

5. Resolved, That there is reason to believe God does not intend to allow 
this controversy to end but in the destruction of slavery, its true cause, and 
we are heartily with the Government, in the war, and every other measure 
which tends legitimately to this result. 

7. Resolved, That we faithfully express to our people, and our fellow-citi- 
zens, the opinion that the magnitude of the interests involved requires that 
every true-hearted American should consider himself, his sons and his pro- 
perty, subject to the exigencies and demands of the government, and that 
after the rebellion is utterly suppressed, and our whole nation is again 
united, we will praise God, though we have nothing left but our country and 
the germ of a free nation, without the curse of slavery. — Minutes California 
Conference, p. 34. 

California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Napa City, California, September 2-9, 1863: 

1. Resolved, That with our whole hearts we approve the President's Proc- 
lamation of Emancipation, and also his more recent Proclamation, in which 
he publishes his determination to extend the same protection to colored sol- 
diers, under the laws of wars which is extended to white soldiery of the 
government. 

2. Resolved, That we possess as many and as sacred " inalienable rights as 
any other class of citizens, and are as ready to perform the duties which 
they enjoin, and to defend the privileges which they imply. 

4. Resolved, That in the recent political success of the Union Party in this 
State, — a party made up of all creeds except the creed of treason, — we see 
much cause to rejoice, not as partizans who hope to reap spoils from victory, 
but as patriots who deprecate civil strife, love our country, and pray for an 
honorable and enduring peace. — Min. California Conference, p. 31. 



California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
San Francisco, California, commencing September 21, 1864: 

Resolved, 3. That we are highly gratified by the advance of free principles, 
liberating hundreds of thousands who have been held in unrighteous bond- 
age, and adding several former slave States to the number of the free, and 
we express the devout hope that this process, may advance until our land 
and fundamental law shall be relieved from the shameful contradiction of the 
noblest liberty by the vilest despotism. 

Resolved, 4. That we have no reason to be surprised or discouraged by the 
protracted period of this struggle. The enormous proportions and resources 
of the rebellion, as well as the sins of the nation, and especially the wrongs 



46 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



of the colored race, still unredressed, forbid the hope of a contest either easy 
or brief. If we wish to close the war we must do right, and Grod will say to 
the avenging angel, " it is enough, put up thy sword." 

Resolved, 5. We have the highest satisfaction in the incorruptible patriot- 
ism of our people, indicated by individual sacrifice and heroism, by the 
unanimous votes of our Annual Conferences, and the official acts of our 
highest ecclesiastical body. 

"With no spirit of boasting, but fully understanding the grave import of 
our words, we express the opinion, that the members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church may be relied upon to the extent of their ability and means to 
stand up in this conflict until the last rebel is conquered and the last slave 
is free. — Min. California Conference, pp. 34, 35. 

California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
San Francisco, California, September 20-27, 1865: 

In the spirit of well-spoken words, we believe that the right of suffrage 
ought to be extended to colored men, with such limitations and such only as 
are imposed upon other citizens ; and that for these brief reasons : 

1. They are men, and as such are "endowed with certain inalienable 
rights," which rights in their nature imply a political power adequate to 
their own protection. 

2. To pronounce a people free, while we withhold from them 'the political 
power of self-protection, is an incongruity so monstrous in a free State as to 
provoke suspicion and rebuke ; and can only serve to show that the blind 
prejudices spawned of slavery survive their accursed parent. 

3. We have proved the principle of universal suffrage to be safe and ex- 
pedient. 

4. The infraction of a principle by an exceptional instance based on super- 
ficial grounds, is the virtual destruction of that principle, and the substitu- 
tion of an act or a series of acts in its place. Thenceforth there is no un- 
questioned standard of appeal ; but whether any class of men shall vote, be- 
comes a debatable issue to be settled by precedent, the pleasure of majorities, 
or the accidents of politics. 

5. The average of intelligence and thrift among colored men is fully equal 
to that of some classes who already enjoy the elective franchise. 

6. Their love of liberty is unquenchable and their patriotism unquestion- 
able. They were right when their masters were wrong, loyal when their 
masters were disloyal, true when their masters were false, kind when their 
masters were cruel. They fed us at the peril of their lives, when their mas- 
ters starved us in loathsome prison-pens ; bound up our wounds with bal- 
sams when their masters lacerated our flesh with bloodhounds. 

7. They rendered unrequited and perilous service to fugitive Union men 
in swamps and forests. 

8. They fought heroically for the rights of political manhood, and baptised 
the Proclamation of Emancipation with their blood. 

9. To prevent that foul offspring of slavery, shameless miscegenation, and 
to insure public tranquility, it is a moral and political necessity that we re- 
fuse to tolerate a civilly degraded class in our midst, who will be subject to 
the ambition, brutality, and lust of more powerful classes. 

10. All the political power which we unjustly withhold from freedmen, 
must unjustly be wielded by the late armed traitors who live among them, 
greatly to the disparagement and injury of every loyal voter North or South. 

Resolved, 5. That we will steadily maintain the right of colored citizens, 
and all other citizens, on the same terms, to that inestimable franchise of 
freemen, the ballot-power. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



47 



Resolved, 7. That we respectfully submit to the American public whether, 
in grateful recognition of the most merciful providence of our God over our 
country in its trials and triumphs, the Preamble to the Constitution of the 
United States ought not to be so amended as distinctly to recognize His 
Being, government, and sovereign goodness. — Min. California Conference, 
pp. 17, 18. 

California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
San Jose, California, September 19-26, 1866: 

Resolved, 1. That in the constitution of governments and the administra- 
tion thereof, a sound public " policy" requires the recognition of the man- 
hood of every human being, and the application to public affairs of the rule, 
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye the 
same unto them ;" and that as it is a fundamental truth, without which a 
democratic government cannot stand, that "All men are created free and 
equal," all laws making distinction among them in respect to civil or political 
rights on account of race or color, are as unwise and unsafe as they are un- 
democratic and unchristian. 

Resolved, 2. That we are in favor of the amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States now referred to the several States for approval, believing 
it to be one of the essentials of a permanent reconstruction of the Union, 
and to be an equitable limitation of political power in States which deny the 
right of voting to any of their adult male citizens. 

Resolved, 3. That the whole power of the Government be employed in 
protecting loyal men of every color, and especially the defenseless freedmen, 
against lawless violence, and that the Administration which will suffer dis- 
charged soldiers, white or black, who have exposed their lives upon the field 
of bloody conflict for the life of the nation, or any other loyal men, to be 
stricken down by mob violence or secret assassination on account of their 
devotion to their country, without avenging the wrong to the utmost of its 
power, is obnoxious to the burning indignation of an outraged people. — 
Min. California Conference, pp. 19, 20. 

California Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Santa Clara, California, September 18-24, 1867 : 

1st. That we recognize God as the Supreme disposer of our national affairs, 
and that our peace and true prosperity depend upon our allegiance to Him 
and His eternal principles of justice and right. 

2d. That the right to vote is the only security and defense of American 
citizenship, and safeguard against oppression and wrong. 

3d. That the withholding of this right from the colored Americans of this 
State is an injustice which can be atoned for only by speedily extending to 
them the franchise of American citizens at the ballot-box. — Min. California 
Conference, p. 27. 

Oregon Conference. — Adopted by the session held in Al- 
bany, Oregon, August £-14, 1866: 

Resolved, 1st. That a living, active Christianity is the basis of our nation- 
al prosperity, and the security of our national life, and we earnestly desire 
all our people to pray and labor for its revival and diffusion over this land. 

2d. That it is our desire that the sublime results of the late contest be fully 
realized, and we therefore rejoice in the action of our National and State 



48 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Legislatures which has made a recognition of the principles of universal 
freedom, and universal brotherhood, a part of the supreme law of the land. 
— Min. Oregon Conference, p. 25. 

East Baltimore Conference. — Adopted by the session held 
in Baltimore, Maryland, March 5-14, 1862: 

1. Resolved, That as a body of Christian Ministers in Conference assem- 
bled, we hereby express our abhorrence of the rebellion now exsiting within 
our borders, as being treasonable in its origin, sanguinary in its progress, and 
as tending to retard the advancement of civil liberty throughout the world. 

2. Resolved, That we hereby approve and endorse the present wise and pa- 
triotic administration of the Federal Government in its efforts to defeat the 
plans and to overcome the armed resistance of the so-called Confederate 
States, with a view of maintaining and perpetuating the unity of this Gov- 
ernment. 

3. Resolved, That in our patriotic efforts in the past or present to sustain 
the Government of our couutry, in this her time of severe trial, we are not 
justly liable to the charge of political teaching ; and in the inculcation of 
loyal principles and sentiments, we recognize the pulpit and the press as 
legitimate instrumentalities. — Min. East Baltimore Conference, pp. 31, 32. 

East Baltimore Conference. — Adepted by the session held 
in Frederick City, Maryland, commencing March 13, 1867 : 

Whereas, The emancipation of slaves of this nation found them in a con- 
dition of extreme ignorance and poverty, and it was found necessery to pro- 
vide means to supply their wants, teach them the arts of society, and pre- 
pare them to participate in all departments of business ; 

And Whereas, The recent legislation of the National Congress has de- 
stroyed all civil distinctions, and by a just and Christian enactment, made 
loyalty, not color, the test of qualification for the enjoyment of civill rights 
and immunities ; 

And Whereas, It will be necessary to educate the freedmen thoroughly 
in order to elevate them, and prepare them to exercise intelligently all the 
rights of citizenship. 

Resolved by the ' East Baltimore Conference, That it is our duty to seek to 
educate them up to the high privileges they enjoy, and we recognize as an 
important auxiliary the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. — Min. East Baltimore Conference, pp. 34, 35. 

Western Virginia Conference. — Adopted by the session 
held at Moundsville, Virginia, commencing March 11, 1868 : 

By the blessing of Divine Providence, we again enjoy peace in all our 
borders. The discordant elements by which our beloved country for years 
past has been seriously interrupted, have either subsided or are now held in 
check by the administration of wise and wholesome laws ; and with the re- 
turn of peace we have an encouraging degree of prosperity at present, with 
much to hope for in the future. God, the giver of all good, (to the praise of 
His great name be it spoken), is once more crowning our country with the 
greatest of plenty ; therefore, 

Resolved, 1st. That in view of God's gracious dealings with us as a Church, 
in the spread of His truth and the salvation of sinners, that we will, as a 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 49 

Conference, enter into a closer covenant with Him ; and that we will make 
a more thorough effort to carry the Gospel to every one in our midst. 

Resolved, 2d. That we have full confidence in that superintending Provi- 
dence which has hitherto guided the affaire of our country; that in the 
future, as in the past, He will deliver us from impending dangers and difficul- 
ties, and overrule all for good. — Mm. West Virginia Conference, p. 19. 



Kentucky Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Covington, Kentucky, commencing March 3, 1866: 

Resolved, 1. That in recognition of the claims which rest upon us, and the 
privileges which we enjoy as citizens and ministers of the Gospel, we with 
joy express our profound gratitude to Almighty God for the restoration of 
peace to the land so lately swept by the desolations of war ; for the preser- 
vation of the Union, so lately threatened and imperiled ; and for the removal 
of the cause of difference and hostility in the country, as witnessed in the 
adoption of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery. And that 
we will hereafter, as we have hitherto done, labor and pray for the peace, 
the prosperity and the glory of the country. — Minutes Kentucky Conference, 
p. 35. 

Tennessee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, commencing October 11, 1866: 

In the establishment of the American Republic, the destructive dogma of 
inequality of human rights was incorporated into its organic laws, and the 
terrible struggle through which we have just passed is the legitimate results 
of this grave compromise with evil, therefore 

1. Resolved, That it is with profound gratitude to Almighty God, that we 
are able to record that the people of this country have learned a valuable 
lesson from this terrific struggle between right and wrong, and have fully 
determined that no more compromises with injustices shall be made, and are 
now laying the foundation of our political institutions upon the broad and 
enduring basis of equal and exact justice to all men. 

2. Resolved, That the enactments of the xxxix Congress of the United 
States are of a character to commend themselves to the loyal men of all sec- 
tions of our country, and as a Conference we will support Congress as the 
people's representatives, by every legitimate means in our power. 

3. Resolved, That as a Republican Government embraces the idea of self- 
government, which finds expression in the right to select representatives, 
Therefore, all men affected by government, either in person or property, 
should have a voice in the selection of their rulers, subject to those qualifica- 
tions only, by which all men are alike effected. — Minutes Tennessee Confer- 
ence, pp. 17, 18. 

Tennessee Conference. — Adopted by the session held at 
Shelbyville, Tennessee, October 3-7, 1887: 

1. Evolved, That it gives us no smnll degree of satisfaction to note the 
unanimity and devotion of our Churca in the maintenance of nationality 
and universal liberty. 

2. Resolved, That the pledges of the nation to the Freedmen, should be 
sacredly kept, and slavery should not be retained in spirit, while it is abolish 

7 



50 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



ed in name ; that, not till ail men are equal before the law, can there be ad- 
equate protection for their rights. 

3. Resolved, That it is the duty of all our people, to join hands with the 
good of every name, in striving, by all wise and prudent means, to purify 
the politics of the country, for so long a time, a sink of corruption, repulsive 
to good men, and hasten a state of things, in which none can be raised to the 
high places of the nation, unless known to have the fear of God before their 
eyes. — Minutes Tennessee Conference, p. 26. 



Holston Conference. — Adopted by the session held at Knox- 
ville, Tennessee, commencing October 3, 1867: 

It is a very truthful saying that revolutions guided by the unseen hand of 
Providence never go backward. God has made, of one blood, all the people 
that compose the nations of the earth, and He wills that men of every color 
shall enjoy like privileges in Church and State. 

We are more than ever convinced that the reconstruction policy adopted 
by our constitutional and patriotic Congress is one that will bring with it 
peace, permanency and prosperity all through our country if properly car- 
ried out, and give to all men the same God-given immunities and privileges. 
—Mm. Holston Conference, p. 17. 



Mississippi Mission Conference. — Adopted by the session 
held in New Orleans, Louisiana, commencing Dec. 13, 1866: 

The relations of the church to civil government are clearly denned in the 

Bible The church's mission is general and specific — to the world, to 

each individual Her appeal must be to the national as well as the in- 
dividual conscience, quickening it and purging it from dead works to serve 
the living God, teaching nations and governments that they must be pure, 
that they may dwell in peace and unity and be prosperous and permanent. 

Such being the relation and the duty of the Church to the State, she can- 
not apologize for having reproved, rebuked and exhorted, with all long suf- 
fering and doctrine, sins and sinners in high places. Much less can she con- 
• sent that her messengers shall be dumb and her pulpits silent on any subject 
pertaining to public morals. On all these it becomes her to speak as one 
having authority. No individual, no party, no corporation, state or nation 
should be allowed to escape her watch-care, her wise counsel, and, if need 
be, her withering rebuke. 

The Church, thus contributing to the weal of the civil government, has a 
right to claim its protection. 

2. Resolved, That we call upon the general government to see to it that 
the inalienable rights proclaimed and established by our fathers, and en- 
grafted by them in the Constitution of the United States, and reasserted by 
the nation upon the battle-field and at the ballot-box, be guaranteed to all, 
and that our citizens of every color and clime be protected in their persons, 
property, business, life, liberty and religion. — Min. Mississippi Mission Con- 
ference, p. 20. 



This mass, of statements, declarations, preambles and resolu- 
tions, all political, passed under the eyes of the bishops, and com- 
ing forth as the official action of ninety-seven sessions of forty-six 
respective Annual Conferences, and from five thousand preachers 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



51 



as representatives of the M. E. Church, is conclusive evidence of 
her political character. But this evidence is stronger, if possible, 
in view of the fact that the foregoing is but little more than the 
one-tenth part of the political platforms as adopted by the Con- 
ferences. We would be glad to publish them in full, but the limits 
of this book forbid it. 

As the primary design of all political resolutions is to represent 
the political sentiments of the body adopting them, their mere 
existence is prima facie evidence of the political character of the 
body from which they proceed. But not only so, the adoption of 
all such resolutions by ecclesiastical bodies argues the right of 
the Church to advocate, defend and support, by all the means in 
her power, the political principles they embody. But some M. 
E. preachers claim, in localities where the political intermeddling 
of the Church is unpopular, that their Conference actions are not 
political, but simply " loyal and patriotic ;" but when they meet 
men too well informed to be imposed upon by such attempts at 
deception they begin to defend the jjolitical actions of their Con- 
ferences by saying that " great moral principles" are involved in 
the political issues of the day, and that, therefore, it is the right 
and duty of the Church to speak out on these points of public in- 
terests. And, when driven to the utmost extremity, they under- 
take to apologize for and defend this political intermeddling by 
saying that ministers are citizens, and consequently have the same 
right to express and advocate their political sentiments as others. 
Thus, by base subterfuge and deception they seek to blind and 
mislead those who are opposed to all such abominations in the 
Church. 

In the first place, we remark that these political actions were 
endorsed and passed, not by men as citizens, but by men in the 
capacity of ministers and ambassadors of the Lord Jesus, and as 
representatives of the Church, while professing to be engaged in 
the solemn exercise of their high and holy calling. They were 
not adopted by a convention of citizens assembled for that pur- 
pose but by ecclesiastical bodies met to transact the business of 
the Church, and therefore, all attempts to apologize for the 
political platforms of the Church upon -the ground that they were 
adopted by ministers in the exercise of their privileges as citizens, 
are base and deceptions. Under the same plea and with equal 
propriety these men might in their Annual and General Confer- 
ences nominate candidates for civil offices. 



52 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



In the next place, if Churches are to be excused for entering 
the arena of political agitation because they do it in the name of 
" loyalty " and " patriotism," or upon the plea that " great moral 
principles" are involved then there are no bounds to be fixed to 
their political interference. By claiming their actions to be sim- 
ply expressions of loyalty, or, that moral principles are in some 
way connected with political questions they may assume to direct 
in all political matters whatever. This is now precisely the case 
with the M. E. Church. There are no political issues of the day 
upon which she has not spoken. The following are some of the 
teachings and principles of her Conference platforms: 

1. That the Church is the guardian of the nation. 

2. That she has a right to discuss political issues. 

3. That she has the right to dictate the duty and policy of the 
Government. 

4. That it is the " duty and mission of the Church to secure 
and appropriate the whole country with all its resources to the 
spread of Christianity." 

5. That she has a right to exhort and rebuke civil authority. 

6. That the General Government is under obligations to the 
M. E. Church. 

I. That it is to the interest of the Government that the M. E. 
Church be established throughout the South. 

8. That the General Government be required to favor the M. 
E. Church. 

9. That negroes be invested with all the privileges of citizen- 
ship — to be our legislators, judges, governors and presidents. 

10. That there be perfect political, social and ecclesiastical 
equality of the races. 

II. That the right of the negroes to all the privileges of citizen- 
ship is a divine right. 

12. That a large portion of the white population of the country 
be disfranchised. 

13. That the supremacy of negroes over white people in the 
South is to the interest of the Government. 

14. That lands belonging to white people in the South be di- 
vided among the negroes. 

15. That the civil war be prosecuted on the part of the North 
at the sacrifice of all interests, material and political. 

16. That the Federal Government have the support and co- 
operation of the M. E. Church in the prosecution of the war. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



53 



IT. That God is a partisan in the war and that it is just and 
holy on the part of the North. 

18. That we, as ministers of the M. E. Church, heartily ap- 
approve of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 

19. That President Buchanan was an enemy to the country. 

20. That Abraham Lincoln was a true patriot, a statesman and 
a Christian, and that his administration was wise, patriotic and 
righteous. 

21. That all who criticised his administration were guilty of 
"disloyalty." 

22. That President Johnson is a traitor to the Government — 
an enemy to God and humanity, and undeserving the confidence 
of honest men. 

23. That his administration is unwise and wicked. 

24. That those who are in sympathy with his administration 
are enemies to the Government. 

25. That the interests of the country demand his impeachment, 
and removal from office. 

26. That it is a Christian duty to pray for his removal. 

2V. That Gen. Grant, and Stanton, ex-Secretary of War, be 
commended for their opposition to President Johnson. 

28. That the radical measures of a radical faction in Congress 
be endorsed and encouraged in opposition to the administration. 

29. That traitors should, and must be punished. 

30. That a radical "reconstruction" policy should be pursued. 

31. That we, the ministers of the M. E. Church, "pledge" our- 
selves to each other to "renew" our " efforts in the great political 
conflict." 

32. That we rejoice in the triumph of our principles by means 
of fire and sword. 

Wholly and solely political and intensely radical, partisan and 
dictatorial as these principles are, they are, nevertheless, to be 
found with many others of like character, in the records of the 
M. E. Church. Read the extracts from the journals and minutes 
as copied in this book and you will find all I have said to be true. 
When we see the M. E. Church in her General and Annual Con- 
ferences, laying down the "reconstruction" policy of the Govern- 
ment, demanding the enfranchisement of negroes, the disfran- 
chisement of white citizens, the punishment of "traitors," the 
the impeachment of the highest officer in the Government; when 
we see her advocating changes in the fundamental law of the 



54 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



land, the dividing of southern lands among negroes, their eleva- 
tion over whites in the South, and their right to the highest of- 
fice in the gift of the people ; when we see her, in the beginning 
of the war, opposing all compromise and peaceable adjustment 
of the difficulties between the North and South ; when we see 
her urging a bloody and relentless war for the abolition of slave- 
ry, and pledging her co-operation in it, claiming to be a party in 
the war, a great military power in the land, and boasting of hav- 
ing sent more soldiers to battle than any other denomination ; 
when we see her declaring the Government under obligations to 
her, and making peremptory demands of it in her favor ; when 
we see her claiming the Church to be the guardian of the nation, 
with the right to discuss political issues and measures, to dictate 
the policy of the Government, to exhort and rebuke civil authori- 
ty; when, I, say, we see all these things and much more of the 
same character published in the journals and minutes of the Con- 
ferences of the M. E. Church, we are led to the conclusion that 
she is simply nothing more nor less than a politico-ecclesiastical 
party in the land. And now, in conclusion on this point, we ask: 
If the M. E. Church has the right in her General and Annual 
Conferences to adopt regular political platforms (which according 
to her own records she has done) has she not the same right to 
nominate and support candidates for the Presidency of these 
United States, for Congress and all the various civil offices in the 
gift of the people ? Is there not as much propriety in one as in 
the other? 



Section IV. 



Protest of three thousand and fifty New England Clergymen 
of different denominations, against the passage of the Nebraska 
Bill: 

" To the Honorable, the Senate and House of 

Representatives, in Congress assembled : 

"The undersigned, clergymen of different religious denominations in New 
England, hereby, in the name of Almighty God, and in his presence, do 
solemnly protest against the passage of what is known as the Nebraska Bill, 
or any repeal or modification of the existing legal prohibitions of slavery in 
that part of our national domain which it is proposed to organize into the 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



55 



territories of Nebraska and Kansas. We protest against it as a great moral 
wrong, as a breach of faith eminently unjust to the moral principles of the 
community, and subversive of all confidence in national engagements ; as a 
measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved 
Union, and exposing us to the righteous judgments of the Almighty ; and 
your protestants, as in duty bound, will ever pray. 
" Boston, Massachusetts, March 1, 1854." 



The New England M. E. preachers being represented, in the 
protest are as responsible for it as though no others were con- 
cerned in it. We offer no comment upon this document, but re- 
fer the reader to a few extracts from several of the speeches de- 
livered by members of the Senate on the occasion of its presenta- 
tion, in which the vain assumptions, the dictatorial spirit and the 
political intermeddling of clerical politicians are clearly exposed 
and most justly rebuked : 



Extract from the speech of Mr. Mason : 

" I trust I shall never see the day when the Senate of the United States 
will treat the authors of such petitions, upon any subject proper for legisla- 
tion pending before that body, coming from the people of the United States, 
with aught but respect. But I understand this petition to come from a class 
who have put aside their character of citizens. It comes from a class who 
style themselves, in the petition, ministers of the G-ospel, and not citizens. 
They come before us — I have not understood the petition wrong, I believe 
— as ministers of the Gospel, not citizens, and denounce prospectively the 
action of the Senate, in their language, as a moral wrong ; and they have 
the temerity, in the presence of the people of the United States, to invoke 
the vengeance of the Almighty, whom they profess to serve, against us. 
Sir, ministers of the Gospel are unknown to this Government, and God for- 
bid the day should ever come when they shall be known to it. The great 
effort of the American people has been, by every form of defensive measures, 
to keep that class away from the Government ; to deny to them any access 
to it as a class, or any interference in its proceedings. The best illustration 
of the wisdom of that measure in our Government is to be found in this. 
Ministers of the Gospel, I repeat, are unknown to the Government. Of all 
others, they are the most encroaching, and, as a body, arrogant class of men. 

If thirty thousand, or three hundred thousand citizens come from 

New England, let them be heard ; but when they come here, not as citizens, 
but declaring that they come as ministers of the Gospel, and, as the honor- 
able Senator from Texas declared them to be, vicegerents of the Almighty — 
so I understood him to declare, possibly he meant vice-regents to supervise 
and control the legislation of the country — I say, when they come here as a 
class unknown to the Government, a class that the Government does not 
mean to know in any form or shape, not to recommend or remonstrate, but 
to denounce our action as a great moral wrong, because they claim to be the 
' vicegerents ' of the Almighty, we are bound — not from disrespect to them 
as citizens, not from disrespect to the cloth which they do not grace, but 
from respect to the Government, from respect to the sacred public trust 
which has been committed to us — to carry out the policy of the Government 
and refuse to recognize them. Sir, their object, as was well said by the Sen- 
ator from Illinois, has been agitation — agitation ; and I presume that their 
cloth and their ministry will enable them to agitate with some success." 



56 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Extract from the speech of Mr. Adams, of Mississippi: 

" I trust I have as high a regard for their vocation as any other individual, 
and as much respect for the ministers of peace and good-will on earth as any 
other individual ; but when they depart from their high vocation, and come 
down to mingle in the turbid pools of politics, I would treat them just as I 
would treat all other citizens. I would treat their memorials and remon- 
strances precisely as I would those of other citizens. It is so unlike the 
apostles and the ministers of Christ at an early day, that it loses the potency 
which they suppose the styling themselves ministers of the Gospel would 
give their memorials. The early ministers of Christ attended to their mis- 
sion, one which was given to them by their Master ; and under all circum- 
stances, even when the Savior himself was upon earth, and attempts were 
made to induce him to give opinions with reference to the municipal affairs 
of the government, he refused. These men have descended from their high 
estate to assail the action of this body. The Senator from Massachusetts, 
(Mr. Everett,) in presenting the petition, has done what he considered to be 
his duty ; but I would remark, however, that with all the respect which be- 
longs to the high character of those individuals as ministers of the Gospel, 
their petition should, under the circumstances, receive no more respect from 
us than if it came from any other private citizens." 

Extract from the speech of Mr. Douglas : 

" Now, sir, what is this remonstrance ? These men do not protest as citi- 
zens. They do not protest in the name of either of themselves or of their 
fellow -citizens. They do not even protest in their own names, as clergymen, 
against this act, but they say that 1 we protest in the name op Almighty 
God ;' and in order to make it more emphatic, that they claim to speak by 
authority in their remonstrance, they underscore, in broad black lines, the 
words 'in the name op Almighty God.' It is true that they describe 
themselves as ministers of the Gospel, but they claim to speak in the name 
of Almighty on a political question pending in the Congress of the United 
States. It is an attempt to establish in this country the doctrine that a body 
of men, organized and known among the people as clergymen, have a pe- 
culiar right to determine the will of God in relation to legislative action. 
It is an attempt to establish a theocracy to take charge of our politics and 
our legislation. It is an attempt to make the legislative power of this coun- 
try subordinate to the Church. It is not onty to unite Church and State, 
but it is to put the State in subordination to the dictates of the Church. 
Sir, you can not find, in the most despotic countries, in the darkest ages, a 
bolder attempt on the part of the ministers of the Gospel to usurp the power 
of government, and to say to the people : ' You must not think for your- 
selves ; you must not dare to act for yourselves ; you must, in all matters 
pertaining to the afl'airs of this life, as well as the next, receive instructions 
from us ; and that, too, in the performance of your civil and official, as well 
as your religious duties.' 

" Sir, I called your attention to this matter for the purpose of showing that 
it involved a great principle subversive of our free institutions. If we rec- 
ognize three thousand clergymen as having a higher right to interpret the 
will of God than we have, we destroy the right of self-action, of self-govern- 
ment, of self-thought, and we are merely to refer each of our political ques- 
tions to this body of clergymen, to inquire of them whether it is in conform- 
ity with the law of God and the will of the Almighty, or not. This docu- 
ment, I repeat, purports to speak in the name of Almighty God, and then 
enters a protest in that name. We are put under the ban, we are excom- 
municated, the gates of heaven are closed, unless we obey this behest, and 
stop in our course and carry out these abolition views. 

"The Senator from Texas says the people have a right to petition. I do 
not question it. I do not wish to deprive ministers of the Gospel of that 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUKCH. 



57 



right. I do not acknowledge that there is any member of this body who 
has a higher respect and veneration either for a minister of the Gospel, or 
for his holy calling, than I have ; but my respect is for him in ids calling. I 
will not controvert what the Senator from Massachusetts has said as to there 
being, perhaps, no body of men in this country, three thousand in number, 
who combine more respectability than these clergymen. Probably they 
combine all the respectability which he claims for them ; but I will add, that 
I doubt whether there is a body of men in America who combine so much 
profound ignorance on the question upon which they attempt to enlighten 
the Senate, as this same body of preachers. How many of them, do you 
suppose, sir, have ever taken up and read the act of 1820, to which I allude ? 
Do you think there is one of them who has done so? How many of them 
ever read the votes by which the North repudiated that act of 1820 ? Do 
you think one of them ever did? How many ever read the various votes 
which I quoted on that act and the Arkansas act ? Do you think one of 
them knew anything about them ? How many of them have ever traced 
the course of the compromise measures of 1850 on record? One of them ? 
Yet they assume, in the name of the Almighty, to judge of facts, and laws, 
and votes, of which they know nothing, and which they have no time to 
understand, if they perform their duties, as clergymen, to their respective 
flocks. 

" They do not pretend to judge from the knowledge of this world, from 
the records of the Senate, or from any of the sources of information on which 
Senators and citizens predicate their action ; but by the will and law of God, 
and in his name, and in consequence of their divine mission, they overrule 
all these, and prescribe a new test, and, in that name, they tell us that, by 
the passage of the bill which we have passed, we have committed a moral 
wrong. They tell us that it is subversive of all confidence in national en- 
gagements. 

" Now, let me ask, are these men particularly tenacious of national en- 
gagements ? Did they, in their pulpits, in 1850 and 1851, tell their followers 
that they were bound by their oaths, and by their religious duty, to surren- 
der fugitive slaves in obedience to the Constitution ? Did they tell their 
people that they must perform national engagements ? Did they tell their 
flocks that the Senate was right in carrying out the provisions of the Con- 
stitution ? Ha ve they been particularly in the habit of enjoining in the pul- 
pit and from the sacred desk, as a matter of conscience, that the people 
should perform the national engagements contained in the Constitution of 
our country, and which we are all sworn to support ? Sir, I do not remem- 
ber that any one of these three thousand preachers, at the time when in Bos- 
ton and other points of this country there were attempts to resist the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law by force, came forward and said it was a divine duty to per- 
form national engagements. If they did, I have not seen the evidence of it. 
If they felt it was a matter of conscience and of duty on the part of the clergy 
to supervise the fulfillment of national engagements, to preserve the public 
faith, and the public honor, where were they then ? When your Constitu- 
tion was trampled upon, when oaths of office could not bind men to perform 
their constitutional duty, when public honor was being outraged, where 
then were these three thousand clergymen ? We did not hear from them on 
that occasion. There was a national engagement which no man can deny ; 
yet they did not raise their voices against its violation. But in this case, 
merely because some abolitionists from this body have said that an act of 
Congress constituted a national engagement, although the statement is con- 
tradicted by the record, they come forward at the bidding of an abolition 
junta, to arraign the Senate of the United States in the name of the Al- 
mighty ! 

Sir, I deny their authority. I deny that they have any such commission 
from the Almighty to decide this question. I deny that our Constitution 
confers any such right upon them. They can perform their duties within 
their sphere without my censure or interference, and they are responsible 



58 POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



to the Almighty for the manner in which they perform those duties ; and I 
must be left to perform my duties within the sphere of my functions, with 
no other responsibility than to my constituents and to the Almighty, with- 
out interference of those men. I do not acknowledge them as an interme- 
diate tribunal. I do not acknowledge that they are, as the gentleman from 
Texas has called them, the vicegerents of the Almighty, and that they are to 
perform the duty of overlooking our conduct. I repuliate the whole doc- 
trine as at war with the pure principles of Christianity, at war with the 
spirit of our institutions, at war with our Constitution, at war with every 
principle upon which a free government can rest." 

POLITICAL CLERGY OF THE NORTHWEST AND HON". S. A. DOUGLAS. 

Several weeks after the protest from New England was pre- 
sented to Congress, twenty-five ministers of Chicago and the 
Northwest sent a similar document to the Senate and House of 
Representatives in Congress assembled. Accompanying this pro- 
test were several resolutions, one of which censured Mr. Douglas 
and others. This drew from Mr. Douglas a speech in defense in 
which he exposes still further the assumptions of power and the 
dictatorial spirit of the political clergy. We subjoin a part of 
his speech : 

Extract from the speech of Mr. Douglas : 

" With the exception of the description of your locality ' in the North- 
western States' instead 'of New England' and the interpolation of the words 
'as citizens,' this protest is an exact copy of the one presented to the Senate 
from the clergymen of New England, upon which the debate occurred which 
you have condemned. After reading that debate, and seeing the nature of 
the objections urged to the New England protest, it seems that you determin- 
ed to present yourselves to the Senate in a two-fold capacity. — the one ' as 
citizens' and the other ' as ministers of the Gospel of Christ.' Nobody ques- 
tions your right ; no one denies the propriety of your exercising the consti- 
tutional right of petitioning government for redress of grievances in your 
capacity as citizens ; nor can there be any well-founded objection to your 
adding these words, ' as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,' if done only 
as illustrative of your relations to society and of your profession and occupa- 
tion in life. This was not the obnoxious feature in the New England pro- 
test. The objection urged to that paper was, that the clergymen who had 
signed it did not protest in their own names, as clergymen, or citizens, or 
human beings, or in the name of any human authority or civil right, but 
they assumed the divine prerogative, and spoke to the Senate ' in the name 
of Almighty God !' 

" With the full knowledge that Senators, in the debate to which you have 
alluded, understood the New England protest in this light — and as asserting 
a divine power in the clergy of this country higher than the obligations of 
the Constitution, and above the sovereignty of the people and of the States 
— to command the Senators, by the authority of Heaven, and under the 
penalty of exposing them ' to the righteous judgment of the Almighty,' to 
vote in a particular way upon a given question, you now re-adopt the pro- 
test, and repeat the command in the identical language in which it was orig- 
inally issued. This looks as if it was your fixed and deliberate purpose, as 
clergymen, to force an issue upon this point with the civil and political^ au- 
thorities of the republic. If there were room for doubt or misapprehension, 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



59 



in this respect, on the face of the New England protest, you have removed 
all obscurity, and avowed the purpose distinctly and boldly in the resolu- 
tions which you adopted at the time you signed the protest : 

'" Resolved, 1. That the ministry is the divinely-appointed institution for 
the declaration and enforcement of God's will upon all points of moral and 
religious truth ; and that, as such, it is their duty to reprove, rebuke, and 
exhort, with all authority and doctrine.' 

" This resolution appears to have been adopted by you at an anti-Nebras- 
ka meeting (composed exclusively of clergymen, twenty -five in number), 
and called'for the purpose of considering that question, and none other. It 
was adopted in connection with the protest, and forms a part of the same 
transaction. The protest denounces the Nebraska Bill 1 in the name of Al- 
mighty God,' as ' a great wrong' — as ' a breach of faith eminently injurious 
to the moral principle of the community,' and 'as exposing us to the righteous 
judgments of the Almighty.' The resolution declares ' that the ministry is 
the divinely -appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God's 
will upon all points of moral and religious truth /' Do not the protest and the 
resolution refer to the same question, to- wit, the Nebraska Bill, now pend- 
ing before Congress? Surely you will not deny that such was your under- 
standing. You assembled to consider that question, and none other. You 
acted upon that subject, and that alone. Your resolutions were declaratory 
of the extent of your rights and powers as clergymen, and your protest was 
your action in conformity with those assumed rights and powers. I under- 
stand, then, your position to be this : that you are ' ministers of the Gospel 
that ' the ministry is the divinely-appointed institution for the declaration 
and enforcement of God's will upon all points of moral and religious truth;' 
and this 'divinely-appointed institution' is empowered 'to declare' what 
questions of civil, political, judicial, or legislative character, do involve 
' points of moral and religious truth ;' that the Nebraska Bill does involve 
such ' points,' and is, therefore, one of the questions upon which it is the 
'divinely -appointed institution' to ' declare and enforce God's will ;' and that 
clothed with ' all authority and doctrine,' this ' divinely-appointed institu- 
tion' proceeds to issue its mandates to the Congress of the United States 'in 
the name of the Almighty God.' This being your position, I must be per- 
mitted to say to you, in all Christian kindness, that I differ with you widely, 
radically, and fundamentally, in respect to the nature and extent of your 
rights, duties, and powers, as ministers of the Gospel. If the claims of this 
' divinely-appointed institution' shall be enforced, and the various public 
functionaries shall yield their judgments to your supervision, and their con- 
science to your keeping, there will be no limit to your temporal power, ex- 
cept your own wise discretion and virtuous forbearance. If your ' divinely- 
appointed institution' has the power to prescribe the mode and terms for 
the organization of Nebraska, I see no reason why your authority may not 
extend over the entire continent, not only to the country which we now 
possess, but to all which may hereafter be acquired. 

" Nor clo vou propose to confine your operations to the supervision and 
direction of the action of Congress, in the organization of territorial gov- 
ernments, and the admission of new States into the Union. It is difficult to 
conceive of any matter of private or public concern, pending before Con- 
gress, or in the Legislatures of the different States, or in the judicial tribu- 
nals, which does not, quite as much as the Nebraska Bill, ' involve some 
point of moral and religious truth ;' and we are informed, in your resolution, 
that ' upon all points of moral and religious truth' the ' ministry is the divine- 
ly-appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God's will. 1 
I do not wish to be understood as intimating that it is your present purpose, 
through the agency of this ' divinely-appointed institution,' to declare and 
enforce God's will in all matters affecting our foreign policy and domestic 
concerns, nor that you intend to direct the movements of the political parties, 
and control the local and general elections throughout the country, It is 
enough to fill with alarm the mind of every patriot, and to bring sorrow and 



60 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



grief to the heart of every Christian, that you have asserted the right to do 
this in all cases, and have, in one case, attempted the exercise of this divine 
prerogative ' in the name of Almighty God.' It is true that, while you as- 
sert the right in the broadest terms, and propose now to establish a prece- 
dent which will justify its exercise in all future time, in your second resolu- 
tion you 1 disclaim all desire' to do certain things, from which it might be 
inferred, on first view, that you do not intend to meddle with party politics, 
nor attempt to control the political movements of the day. This, however, 
turns out to be illusory, on a closer examination. 

" ' Resolved, 2. That while we disclaim all desire to interfere in questions 
of war and policy, or to mingle in the conflicts of political parties, it is our 
duty to recognize the moral bearing of such questions and conflicts, and to 
proclaim, in reference thereto, no less than to other departments of human 
interest, the principle of inspired truth and obligation.' 

"You do not 'desire to interfere in questions of war and policy.' Thus 
far I heartily approve. I rejoice to see that you are willing to leave the 
question of war where the Constitution has placed it — in the hand of Con- 
gress, as the representatives of the people and the States of the Union. 

" You 1 disclaim all desire,' also, ' to mingle in the conflicts of political par- 
ties.' This sentiment is admirable. It will meet the cordial approbation of 
every patriot and Christian. But you immediately follow it with the decla- 
ration that ' it is our duty to recognize the moral bearing of such questions 
and conflicts !' You do not desire to engage in war, nor to fight the battles 
of your country, but you do claim that it is your right, and if you please, 
your duty, by virtue of your office as ministers, through the agency of this 
divinely-appointed institution, to declare, in the name of Almighty God, a 
war in which your country is engaged with a foreign power, to be immoral 
and unrighteous, although the representatives of the people and of the States, 
in pursuance of the Constitution, have declared it to be just and necessary. 
And this, not in the course of your ordinary pastoral duties to your several 
congregations, but as an organized body speaking to the constituted authori- 
ties of the nation. I cannot recognize the principle that, while you are pro- 
tected in the enjoyment of all your rights as citizens, of all your just rights 
as ministers, you are yet released, by virtue of your office as ministers, from 
your allegiance to your country during war, and from your obligation of 
obedience to the Constitution and laws, and constituted authorities at all 
times. 

" You also say, that you consider it your duty to take cognizance of ' the 
moral bearing of the conflicts of the different political parties.' The moral 
bearing of the Democratic party, and of the Whig party, and of the 
Abolition party, are each to be recognized by your divinely-appointed in- 
stitution ; and you then add, that it is your duty ' to proclaim, in reference 
thereunto, the principle of inspired truth and obligation.' You propose, 
through your divinely-appointed institution, to apply the test of ' inspired 
truth' to each of the political organizations and to their respective conflicts, 
and ' to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all authority and doctrine,' in the 
name of the great Jehovah. With all due respect for you, as ministers of the 
Gospel, I can not recognize in your divinely-appointed institution the power 
of prophecy of revelation. I have never recognized the existence of that 
power in any man on earth during my day Your claims for the su- 
premacy of this divinely-appointed institution are subversive of the funda- 
mental principles upon which our whole republican system rests. What 
the necessity of Congress, if you can supervise and direct its conduct ? Why 
should the people subject themselves to the trouble and expense of electing 
legislatures for the purpose of enacting human laws, if their validity depends 
upon the sanction of your divine authority ? Why sustain a vast and com- 
plex judicial system, to expound the laws, administer justice, and determine 
all disputes in respect to human rights, if your divinely-appointed institution 
is invested with the authority to prescribe the rule of decision in the name 
of the Deity ? If your pretentions be just and valid, why not dispense with 



/ 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUEOH. 



61 



all the machinery of human government, and subject ourselves, freely and 
unreservedly, together with all our temporal and spiritual interests and 
hopes, to the justice and mercy of this divinely-appointed institution ? 

" Our fathers held that the people were the only true source of all political 
power ; but what avails this position, if the constituted authorities establish- 
ed by the people are to be controlled and directed — not by their own judg- 
ment, not by the will of their constituents, but by the divinely-constituted 
power of the clergy ? Does it not follow that this great principle, recognized 
and affirmed in the Constitution of the United States, and of every State in 
the Union, is thus virtually annulled, and the representatives of the people 
converted into machines in the hands of an all-controlling priesthood ? 

" The will of the people, expressed in obedience to the forms and provis- 
ions of the Constitution, is the supreme law of this land. But your ' office 

as ministers' is not provided for in the Constitution The persecutions 

of our ancestors were too fresh in the memories of our revolutionary fathers 
for them to create, recognize, or even tolerate, a church establishment in this 
country, clothed with temporal authority. So apprehensive were they of 
the usurpations of this, the most fearful and corrupting of all despotisms, 
whether viewed with reference to the purity of the Church or the happiness 
of the people, that they provided in the Constitution that ' no religious test 
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under 
the United States.' Still, fearful that, in the process of time, a spirit of re- 
ligious fanaticism, or a spirit of ecclesiastical domination, (yet more to be 
dreaded, because cool and calculating,) might seize upon some exciting polit- 
ical topic, and, in an evil hour, surprise or entrap the people into a danger- 
ous concession of political power to the clergy, the first Congress under the 
Constitution proposed, and the people adopted, an amendment to guard 
against such a calamity, in the following words : 

" ' Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof 

" The doctrine of our fathers was, and the principle of the Constitution is, 
that every human being has an inalienable, divinely-conferred right to wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of his own conscince ; and that no earth- 
ly ' institution,' nor any ' institution' on earth, can rightfully deprive him of 
that sacred and inestimable privilege. 

" However, it is no part of my purpose to inquire into the extent of your 
authority in spiritual affairs. That is a question between you and your 
respective congregations, with which I have neither right nor wish to inter- 
fere. 

"All I have said, and all that I propose to say, has direct reference to the 
vindication of my character and position against the unjustifiable assaults 
which you have made in regard to my official action in the Senate. I repeat, 
that your assumption of power from the Almighty, to direct and control the 
civil authorities of this country, is in derogation of the Constitution, subver- 
sive of the principles of free government, and destructive of all the guaran- 
tees of civil and religious liberty. The sovereign right of the people to 
manage their own affairs, in conformity with the Constitution of their own 
making, recedes and disappears, when placed in subordination to the authori- 
ty of a body of men, claiming, by virtue of their offices as ministers, to be a 
divinely-appointed institution for the declaration and enforcement of God's 
will on earth." 



62 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Section V. 



NEW TESTS IN THE M. E. CHUECH. 

Non-Slaveholding a test of Membership. — The General 
Conference of 1864, in Philadelphia, passed the following resolu- 
tions : 

Resolved, 1. By the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in Gener- 
al Conference assembled, That we recommend the amendment of the Gen- 
eral Rule on Slavery so that it shall read : Slavelwlding ; buying or selling 
slaves. 

Resolved, 2. That we recommend the suspension of the fourth restrictive 
rule for the purpose set forth in the foregoing resolution. 

Resolved, 3. That the bishops be requested to submit the foregoing resolu- 
tions to the Annual Conferences at their next sessions, and if the requisite 
number of votes be obtained, to report to the Book Agents, who are hereby 
instructed to insert the new rule in all subsequent editions of the Discipline. 

— General Conference Journal, pp. 376, 377. 

The same General Conference in its reply to an address from 
the Irish Conference, says : 

t. * 

In view of the suggestions from you in the past, we are persuaded you 
will learn with pleasure that at its present session, with almost entire una- 
nimity, the General Conference passed a resolution which only awaits the 
concurrence of the Annual Conferences to render slaveholding a disquali- 
fication for membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church. — General Con- 
ference Journal, p. 298. 

This proposed change did meet the concurrence of the Annual 
Conferences and was afterwards inserted in the Discipline as a 
new condition of membership in the M. E. Church. If it was 
right up to 1864 for the M. E. Church to receive slaveholders to 
her communion, it is wrong now for her to make non-slaveholding 
a condition of membership. In rendering slaveholding a disqual- 
ification for membership she has condemned and banished her 
primitive and long continued rule and custom. She has, in this 
innovation, established a test unauthorized in the holy scriptures, 
yea, in direct opposition to the custom of the Church of God 
both under the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. In this 
she is in advance of the Apostolic Church, and has transcended 
the example of the early disciples of the Lord Jesus who received 
both master and slave to Christian fellowship. According to the 
testimony of her own bishops she is also in advance of Mr. Wes- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



63 



ley, the founder of Methodism. Read the following testimony of 

Bishop Hedding taken from his address to an Annual Conference 

in the State of New York, in 1837 : 

" Methodist Societies were formed in the "West Indies several years before 
the death of Mr. Wesley. They were under his superintendence, and, from 
the best information I nave been able to obtain, slave-owners were admitted 
into those Societies ; and, in perfect accordance with the above views, that 
practice was continued up to the time slavery was abolished in those islands 
by the British Government." 

" " Let it be further remarked, that for several years before the organiza- 
tion of our Church, many of our preachers and people in the South "owned 
slaves ; but they were permitted to do it only under our Saviour's rule. But 
who permitted those preachers and members to own slaves ? You will be 
astonished when I tell you, it was Mr. Wesley And the fact of his al- 
lowing some of his preachers and members in this country to hold slaves for 
several years before our Church was organized, is sufficient evidence, to my 
mind, that he saw that nothing better could be done for the slaves, circum- 
stanced as those owners were, than to hold, feed, protect, and govern them. 

Yet I have been severely condemned for expressing an unwillingness 

to put a resolution to vote in an Annuo! Conference tending to censure our 
brethren in the South for doing the same thing which Mr. Wesley allowed 
their fathers to do when in connection with him, and when also he possesed 
full power to prevent their doing so, or to expel them." 

Nothing is clearer than that under the superintendency of Mr. 
Wesley, and by his sanction, slaveholders were received into his 
Societies, both in the United States and the West Indies. Bish- 
op Janes, in his address to the Wesleyan Methodist Conference 
of Great Britain, July 28, 1885, says: 

I have shown that after some variations, from time to time, of her action 
on the subject of slavery, though steadfastly bearing her testimony against 
the " great evil," the Church now, if not in advance of Mr. Wesley's doctrine 
on the subject, is in advance of his. practice, absolutely denying Church 
membership to all slaveholders. — Daily Christian Advocate, May 11, 1868. 

Abraham, the father of the faithful, all the ancient patriarchs, 
the holy prophets, Christ, and his apostles, John Wesley, the 
founder of Methodism, together with the fathers of the M. E. 
Church in times past, all stand condemned and rebuked by the 
General Conference of 1864, for, none of those holy men estab- 
lished such a test of fellowship in the Church of God, while some 
of them indeed were the owners of slaves. If the M. E. Church, 
as Bishop Janes says, is in advance of Mr. Wesley, then it is cer- 
tain that she does not stand where Mr. Wesley stood. Now, 
this is true, her own Bishops themselves being judges. But what 
shall we say of the consistency of those who claim Wesley as 
their guide and yet boast to the world of being in advance of 
him? In compliance with the spirit of the times, the M. E. 
Church has abandoned the Wesleyan platform, and is now ready 
to condemn all who occupy it. 



64 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Political Tests of Membership. — In the first place, we re- 
mark that by a late false interpretation of the twenty-third article 
of religion, prime allegiance to federal authority is made a test of 
membership in the M. E. Church. A reference to the General 
and Annual Conference actions recorded in this book will show 
the entire correctness of this statement. Ministers of the M. E. 
Church themselves regard this as a new condition of membership, 
as will be seen in the following extract from a report of the West 
Wisconsin Conference, held at Hazel Green, commencing August 
29, 1866, in which it is styled the "present rule requiring loyalty 
to the government," which is to say, that it is a new test : 

In reference to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, with the events of 
another year before us, we think as heretofore, that though we would glad- 
ly receive and fellowship individuals who are thoroughly satisfied with our 
present rule requiring loyalty to the government, and heartily concur in our 
anti-slavery status, yet to receive them as a body, irrespective of those rules, 
would be to absorb the seeds of corruption, discord and contention. — Min. 
West Wisconsin Conference, p. 19. 

This new condition of membership excludes from the M. E. 
Church all that class of Christians who believe their prime allegi- 
ance, as citizens, due the State in which they reside and by whose 
laws they are protected. According to the construction put upon 
the twenty- third article, all are excluded from the M. E. Church 
as disloyal who advocate, or even believe in the right of a State, 
under any circumstances, to withdraw from the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

As it regards the right of States to withdraw from the General 
Government it is purely a political question, over which the Church 
has no more jurisdiction than over any other political issue. It can- 
not be maintained that the withdrawal of States per se involves 
any moral principle whatever. Hence, there may be true Christ- 
ians on both sides of the question. For any branch of the Church, 
therefore, to establish a test of membership upon such issues is to 
do what is wholly unauthorized in the word of God, and which 
at the same time virtually shuts up the Kingdom of Heaven 
against all who cannot subscribe to a certain political dogma. 

In the second place, we observe that the General Conference, 
in 1864, by its decision, created an additional test denying mem- 
bership to all that class of citizens, who, in the exercise of their 
rights as such, criticised the Lincoln administration. The fol- 
lowing is the decision of the General Conference : 

We should frown with indignation on all as guilty of disloyalty who cold- 
ly criticise every measure of the administration in this struggle for the na- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



tioiial life, under the hypocritical pretense that they are careful that the fun- 
damental law shall not be violated. — General Conference Journal, p. 882. 

As loyalty is a test in the M. E. Church, and, as by the decis- 
ion of her General Conference all are disloyal who criticised the 
Lincoln administration, therefore, all who criticised the said ad- 
ministration are excluded from the M. E. Church. The spirit of 
this test denies membership to every democrat in the land. It 
also betrays the partisan attitude of said Church. Adherence 
to a party is made a condition of Christian fellowship. This test 
was practically in existence before 1864. Prior to this date dem- 
ocrats were everywhere proscribed by the so-called loyal party 
in the Church, and a great many were, in various ways, driven 
therefrom. A strong pressure was brought to bear upon demo- 
cratic members to cause them to yield np their principles and 
adhere to the republican party. From the pulpit it was proclaim- 
ed that none but abolitionists had a right in the M. E. Church. 
The whole power and influence of the Church were on the side 
of a political faction, while silence on the agitating questions of 
the day was declared to be treason, and quiet, peaceable mem- 
bers were persecuted out of the Church for saying nothing on 
either side. True, there are some democrats in the Church, but 
they could not remain if the letter and spirit of these new tests 
were carried out in every case. They are allowed to stay merely 
as a matter of policy. Their position is very unenviable indeed. 
Instead of the smiles, the kindly greetings, and the Christian 
sympathy of the whole connection, they meet the "frowns" of 
"indignation" and rebuke of the General Conference. Instead 
of words of encouragement they are pronounced " guilty of dis- 
loyalty" by the highest court of their Church. 

Political Tests in the Ministry. — To show that tests of 
this character have been established we present the following as 
incorporated in the Discipline by order of the General Confer- 
ence, in 1864 : 

Question 2. How shall we receive those ministers who shall offer to unite 
with us from the Methodist Episcopal Church South ? 

Answer. Upon the same condition as specified in answer to question i, 
provided they give satisfactory assurances to an Annual or Quarterly Con- 
ference, of their loyalty to the national government, and hearty approval of 
the anti-slavery doctrine of our Church. — Discipline, Part 2, Chap. 2, Sec. 11, 

The foregoing contains two new conditions of ministerial stand- 
ing, viz: loyalty and abolitionism. Though these tests were in- 

9 



66 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



produced for especial eases, they are, nevertheless, binding on all 
who enter the ministry of the M. E. Church. If they are not 
binding on the entire ministry then it follows that the M. E. 
Church requires more of some than of others, which, if true, 
would place her in the most unenviable position. The design of 
these additional tests, evidently, is to establish and preserve a 
purely radical and abolition ministry. Loyalty in the sense of 
obedience to the powers that be is right; but in this country, 
when a conflict arises between the general government and the 
States, it is a question whether a citizen owes his allegiance to 
the federal government in preference to the State in which he 
lives. Some hold that the States are sovereign, and that the gen- 
eral government is merely the creature of the States, and that, 
therefore, citizens owe their prime allegiance to the States in 
which they live. Others dissent from this view of the subject. 

While we give no opinion in reference to this matter, we do not 
hesitate to say that it is not the prerogative of the Church to de- 
cide questions of this nature, much less to make concurrence with 
a certain view of the subject a test either in the ministry or the 
Church ; and yet the M. E. Church has assumed to do both ; and, 
in doing so, has established a political and partisan test excluding 
all from the ministry who do not subscribe to a certain political 
dogma. The sense in which the term loyalty is used by the 
General Conference shows still more clearly the political and par- 
tisan character of this test. This highest court of the M. E. 
Church renders a verdict of disloyalty against all who criticised 
a radical administration ; thus making adherence to the principles 
and measures of a certain political party in the land the standard 
of loyalty. It is in perfect keeping with this test that the Gene- 
see Conference declared its purpose not to "receive nor tolerate 
among them any one of doubtful loyalty." Other Conferences 
also have avowed the same purpose, as may be seen by referring 
to- their actions on former pages of this work. 

Again, none are to be received into the ministry except those 
who can give " satisfactory assurances of their hearty approval 
of the anti-slavery doctrine of the M. E. Church." This doctrine, 
as set forth by her pulpit and press, and in her General and An- 
nual Conference resolutions, is the very acme of radical abolition- 
ism; and yet a man must give his "hearty approval" of this or 
be excluded from the ministry of said Church. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



67 



Section VI. 



POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE M. E. PULPIT. 

We come now to examine the political character of the M. K 
pulpit; and in doing so shall first present a few extracts from pub- 
lished sermons as samples of political preaching. The following 
is an extract from the sermon of Bishop Morris, preached before 
the General Conference, in Philadelphia, May 10, 1864: 

After the Southern rebellion had developed itself in such magnitude that 
our President became satisfied that there was not power enough in the 
army, as it then existed, to put it down, he called for volunteers. And who 
responded ? I answer that, so far as we know, all Churches did nobly ; but 
it is true, nevertheless, that we have more than any other denomination 
who are in the service of our country. We have at least one hundred thou- 
sand Church members who have been mustered into the service of the United 
States ; and many of our preachers also have gone, some as privates, some 
as captains, and a great many as chaplains ; probably twice as many as from 
other denominations. There are three members of this General Conference, 
regular ministers, who have done service for their country as colonels, mov- 
ing at the head of their regiments amid showers of leaden and iron hail, 
leading the van of the host, amid the shouting and tumult of battle.— Gener- 
al Conference Journal, p. 290. 

In a centenary sermon, preached by Rev. R. Haney before the 
Central Illinois Conference, at Lexington, Illinois, September 23, 
1866, he said: 

True to their principles and the faith of their fathers, our people rose in 
their might with a unanimity which can only be comprehended when we 
remember that God has the hearts of the children of men in the hollow of 
His hand. The old men sent their sons, and the younger and middle aged 
brethern, believing that the time had come when the man who had no sword 
should procure one, repaired to the field. 

Our Church sent to the front one hundred and seventy -five thousand war- 
riors. And we shall not be charged with extravagance when we say that in 
the six hundred and twenty -five battles fought for the life of the government 
of Washington and Lincoln, the blood of Methodists baptized the soil of 
every battle-field. 

During the four years the war lasted, at each annual session, oUr 

Conference resolutions sent words of cheer to our brave countrymen in the 
field and sympathy and co-operation with the State and General Govern- 
ment; and the Central Illinois Conference teas the first ecclesiastical body upon 
this continent who moved the President to proclaim the liberty of every slave in 
the United States. Of this we do not boast, but place it here for those who 
are to come after us, when any shall ask where stood our ministers and peo- 
ple in the night of darkness. What we affirm of our Conference may be 
said of the whole Church. We have no pastorate that would receive or sup- 
port a disloyal man. — Centenary Sermon, with Min. Central Illinois Confer r 
ence y p. 11. 



6.8 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



From a pamphlet entitled " Providence and Our Country" 
containing what is styled a " Thanksgiving Discourse" deliver- 
ed in Canton, Illinois, December 7, 1865, by Rev. J. G. Evans, a 
member of the Central Illinois Conference, we copy the follow- 
ing: 

A great political party, once true and honorable, but now possessing only 
one single mark of honor or respectability, viz : that of age, and that only in 
name, formed near the beginning of the rebellion the deep laid scheme of 
withdrawing their support from the government, giving their sympathies to 
the rebels for their encouragement. 

The " Knights of the Golden Circle " have controlled the party, and 
brought its entire influence as an organization over to the side of the rebels. 
These Northern tories have not had the honor and manliness of even the 
rebels of the South, who have at least shown their bravery. Jeff. Davis, 
though he deserves to hang for his treason, is a gentleman in comparison 
with the "pre in tlie rear " party in the North. The history of that party 
will amply justify everything I have said concerning its treasonable charac- 
ter. It proclaimed the " right of secession ;" it pronounced the "war for the 
suppression of the rebellion unconstitutional ;" it encouraged secession by 
promising its friends in the South that the Government should not coerce 
them into obedience ; it threatened a " fire in the rear" if the Government 
should undertake to conquer the rebels ; it boasted that the streets of "North- 
ern cities should run with blood" before the Government should compel their 
Southern friends to submit; it warned patriots of the North that they 
" would have to walk over dead bodies" before they could reach the land of 
Southern traitors ; it misrepresented and opposed whatever the Govern- 
ment did for the suppression of the rebellion ; it complained when the draft 
was ordered, to raise men to save the country, and incited the vicious to 
deeds of bloodshed ; it howled at the commutation clause in the conscription 
bill, and howled louder still when the clause was repealed ; it was scared 
into a fright at the thought of having a man of color to fight for the Union, 
but made no complaint at his presence in the armies of the rebels ; as in a 
fit of rage, it set up a perfect howl when a traitor was sent to Fort Lafayette, 
but expressed no sympathy for those noble Union men who were shut up in 
Southern prisons and starved to death for their patriotism ; it represented 
the patriot soldiers as vandals devastating the country of an innocent and 
outraged people, while it had no censure for the unparalleled barbarity of 
the rebel leaders and soldiers ; it ever magnified any seeming want of hu- 
manity on the part of our soldiers, but never seemed to have heard of the 
sufferings at Libby Prison, Andersonville and Belle Isle ; it abused our gov- 
ernment, when it had reverses, and praised the skill of rebel generals ; it 
gave the Government no credit when our army gained victories ; it vilified 
our army officers who struck hard, telling blows upon the rebellion, and 
was loud in the praises of those generals who were either traitors or incom- 
petent ; it declared that the further prosecution of the war tended to the 
subversion of the constitution and the overthrow of the government ; it de- 
clared the war to be a failure, and demanded that it should be ended on the 
best terms the rebels might choose to grant us ; it abused and villified the 
kindest-hearted President our country ever had, and fostered a spirit of bit- 
terness and bloodshed until one of its members assassinated that noble Pres- 
ident, and finally it submits to its defeat in the suppression of the rebellion 
with less grace than do the more honorable rebels in the South, who fought 
bravely — though in a bad cause — until overcome by superior force. 

With one dark and dreary exception, — now soon to be removed — our consti- 
tution has no clogs to the working of the great system of republicanism and 
human liberty. 

Stephen A. Douglas intended, by the introduction of the " Kansas-Nebra- 
ka Bill" to place himself in the White House, but to his bitter disappoint- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



69 



ment and great mortification, his act in behalf of the slave power placed his 
liberty-loving rival, Abraham Lincoln, the noblest son of Illinois, in the 
Presidential chair. 

The repealing act in the " Kansas-Nebraska Bill " by which the Missouri 
compromise line was abolished, though conceived in iniquity and born in 
political corruption at the demand of slavery, was one of the most fortunate 
occurrences recorded in our nation's history, notwithstanding the late civil 
war, with all its horrors was precipitated upon us by that ruthless act. 

'Tis true, there have been those among us in the free North who, by their 
continual grumbling, petty fault-finding and bitter invectives, cast upon the 
loyal North and the administration, with an evident sadness at our triumphs, 
and satisfaction at the success of the insurrectionists, have shown their dis- 
loyalty to the government — their love for slavery and hatred of liberty, — 
evidencing their just claim, in company with southern rebels, to the full 
benefit of a portion of hemp, in the shape of a rope ; but the time is rapidly 
approaching when no man can be found so loio as to be willing to acknowl- 
edge even a distant relationship to the tories of the present generation, who, 
though living in the loyal North, have given their sympathies upon the side 
of rebels in the great American conflict. 

God in his providence directed that the field of strife and of greater 

devastation and ruin should be upon the soil of rebels. Even our reverses, 
which we always regretted, may have been necessary to our final good. 
Had McDowell succeeded in reducing the fortifications at Manassas, and 
triumphantly passed on to Richmond, the strong probability is that the Re- 
bellion would have been suppressed, and four millions of human beings still 
left under the yoke of a merciless bondage, and without even a blow being 
struck that should change the status of slavery in our government, or ulti- 
mate in the deliverance of the bondmen We should have expected re- 
verses sufficient to impede the government and encourage the rebels, so as 
to enable them to hold out until our government should recognize God, not 
only as the Great Disposer of events, but as the great Abolitionist of the 
universe. 

The evangelical churches of the loyal States — where there had been 

a free gospel — came forward to their country's rescue, and presented one 
unbroken front to the enemies of God and humanity. 

They obtained the blessing of purification in ridding themselves of a class 
of men who, from their sympathies with traitors, (if for no other reasons,) 
were a disgrace to the Christian name. The Church, thus purified from its 
filth, stood through all the struggle, many of its members shooting bullets, 
and others casting ballots, both doing equal execution to the enemy. 

In years gone by, the pulpit has too often cowardly yielded the 

right to reprove political and national sins " Political preaching''' has 

been the standing cry of corrupt men with which to drive the pulpit from 
the presentation of any truth that might endanger the prospects of any god- 
less, political clique. The poor simpletons who have been crying out against 
" political preaching" have never read the Bible enough to know that it is 

full of politics I find no words in our language sufficiently strong to 

express my contempt for the man who to-day occupies a Christian pulpit, 
and yet gives utterance to sentiments of sympathy with the ignorant winners 
about political preaching. 

The cowardly 'fire in the rear traitors' of the North, during the war, em- 
barrassed the government in every possible way, encouraged the rebels ; 
prolonged the war ; murdered our fathers, husbands, brothers and sons upon 
the bloody battle-fields of the South ; and made mourning fathers, weeping 
mothers, heart stricken widows and helpless orphans all over this beautiful 
and otherwise happy country. They were foul murderers of our brave 
boys, who were standing between us and a heartless despotism. But while 
with sadness we contemplate the existence of such a class of men in our 
country, every true Christian and every patriot will, with deep gratitude of 
heart, thank God to-day that our victories over traitors to God, humanity 



70 POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 

and their country have not been upon the battle-fields of the South alone, 
but also at the ballot-box. During the last years of the war, those Nortliern 
knights of the copper circle, — conspiracy -forming, city-burning, secession-sympa- 
thising, slavery -loving, liberty -hating, and hell-deserving political descendants of 
Arnold, Burr and Calhoun, and relatives of Judas Iscariot, were nearly every 

where beaten by overwhelming majorities And the recent elections 

have evinced the unflinching determination of the people that both wings of 
the rebellion shall die and be buried together. Even New- Jersey has sound- 
ed the death-knell to her country's foes, and joined her sisters in the great 
army of liberty. And old Fulton, so long thought to be almost beyond the 
hope of a resurrection, has well nigh been redeemed. Another revolution 
of liberty's great wheel shall crush out the last vestige of sympathy for 
Southern traitors. 

Their death and national thanksgiving may be properly associated 

together. Let their death be heralded as the beginning of better days, and 
let their funeral be celebrated by thanksgiving to God and songs of praise. 

If all the political harangues ever delivered from the sacred 
desk by M. E. pulpit politicians had been published, and could be 
compiled into a series of volumes, what a record it would make ! 
Truly the pulpit has been converted into a political rostrum from 
which political questions are freely discussed upon the holy Sab- 
bath. The pulpit has given its entire influence to a political fac- 
tion. Democrats, with all that pertain to their party, have been 
denounced in the most unmeasured terms by a partisan clergy, 
while the claims of the opposite party have been urged upon the 
people. Sundays preceeding election have been deemed favorable 
occasions for extra efforts to defeat democratic candidates. 
When Hon. C. L. Yallandigham was before the people of Ohio 
as candidate for Governor, the clergy of Cincinnati set apart the 
Sabbath preceeding the day of election to exhort the voters of 
their respective congregations to cast their ballots against him. 
Men were declared disloyal for not endorsing a radical adminis- 
tration. The few ministers that chose in their public ministra- 
tion, to be neutral upon the political issues of the day, were put 
down as guilty of treason by the super-loyal clergy. Abolition- 
ism, negro-equality — political and social — have been and are sus- 
tained by the radical pulpit. 

So utterly lost to all sense of propriety was one of these politi- 
cal preachers that when called upon on one occasion to preach a 
funeral sermon, he entered into a discussion of the Dred Scott 
decision to the great astonishment of his hearers on that solemn 
occasion. 

War, desolation and extermination have also been considered 
appropriate pulpit topics. The most inflammatory war speeches, 
calculated to arouse the baser passions of the human heart, have 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



71 



issued forth from the sacred desk. Mob law has been encouraged, 
and more than once have peaceable citizens come near losing 
their lives by the mob spirit excited by the speeches and so-called 
sermons of those professing to be called to preach "peace on 
earth and good will toward men." When law-abiding and de- 
fenseless citizens, guilty of no crime but that of adhering to their 
long cherished democratic principles, were torn away from their 
families by unlawful and arbitrary arrests, and incarcerated in 
distant, sickly and filthy dungeons, where some of them spent 
their lives, these political preachers not only sanctioned, but re- 
joiced over these outrages. 

They have knelt before God in public and thanked Him for 
bloody victories; and for the triumph of republican candidates 
over democrats in the elections. They have prayed that federal 
bullets might be directed to the hearts of their fellow beings. 
Some even went so far as to pray that rebels might be sent to 
hell; while others advocated the extermination of helpless women 
and children in the South. Ministers have even paused in the 
solemn services of the sanctuary to read the news of battle. 

After the close of the war, when men of different parties, mak- 
ing no pretensions to religion, seemed disposed to treat the South- 
ern people with a spirit of magnanimity, we find Bishop Simpson, 
one of the leading spirits of the M. E. Church, following the dead 
body of the President over the country, and in his harangues de- 
manding the life of every man that had served in the Confeder- 
ate cause above a certain rank. 

While these ministers tell us that one soul is of infinitely more 
value than millions of worlds, they boast that their Church has 
been the means of sending thousands into eternity, who, accord- 
ing to their showing, are lost to all eternity. What monstrous 
inconsistency! What consummate wickedness! Rather than 
call such men ministers of peace and salvation let them be styled 
the recruiting officers of perdition. Now all these things, con- 
trary as they are to every principle of revealed religion, have 
been done in the name of Christianity, loyalty and patriotism. 
We exceedingly fear for Christianity when we are told that this 
state of things is to continue. Leading editors and ministers of 
the M. E. Church boldly declare it to be the right and duty of 
the pulpit to discuss political issues. They tell us the pulpit will 
never relinquish this right. The foregoing specimens of political 
preaching not only show up the political, partisan, sectional and 



72 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



warlike character of the M. E. pulpit, but also the vindictive 
spirit of the political clergy. We close under this head by giving 
the opinion of others on political preaching : 

Mr. Burke says : 

" Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound 
ought to be heard in the Church but the voice of healing charity. The cause of 
civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion, by this 
confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what 
does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the char- 
acter they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted 
with the world, in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced 
in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, the} r 
know nothing of politics but the passions they excite. Surely the Church 
is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissentions and 
animosities of mankind." 

Dr. Adam Clarke says : 

The necessity of keeping the doctrine of the Gospel uncorrupt, is strongly 
inculcated in the caution to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod ; 
the doctrine of the cross must not only be observed and held inviolate, but 
that doctrine must never be mixed with worldly politics. Time-serving is 
abominable in the sight of God ; it shows that the person has either no fixed 
principle of religion or that he is not under the influence of any . — Clark's 
Commentary, Mark, end of Chap. viii. 

Again he says : 

These persons, forgetful not only of their calling, but of the very spirit of 
the Gospel, read the account of a battle with the most violent emotions ; and, 
provided the victory falls to their favorite side, they exult and triumph in 
proportion to the number of thousands that have been slain ! It is no won- 
der if such become political preachers, and their sermons be no better than 
busks for swine. To such the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. God 
pity such miserable Athenians, and direct them to a more suitable employ- 
ment ! — Ibid, Acts, xvii, 21. 

Thomas Jefferson says: 

I am aware that arguments may be found, which may twist a thread 

of politics into the cord of religious duties. So may they for every other 
branch of human art or science. Thus, for example, it is a religious duty to 
obey the laws of our country ; the teacher of religion, therefore, must in- 
struct us in those laws, that we may know how to obey them. It is a re- 
ligious duty to assist our sick neighbors ; the preacher must, therefore, teach 
us medicine, that we may do it understandingly. It is a religious duty to 
preserve our own health ; our religious teacher, then, must tell us what dish- 
es are unwholesome, and give us recipes in cookery, that we may learn how 
to prepare them. And so, ingenuity, by generalizing more and more, may 
amalgamate all the branches of science into any one of them, and the phy- 
sician who is paid to visit the sick, may give a sermon instead of medicine, 
and the merchant to whom money is sent for a hat, may send a handkerchief 
instead of it. But notwithstanding this possible confusion of all sciences in- 
to one, common sense draws lines between them sufficiently distinct for the 
general purposes of life, and no one is at a loss to understand that a recipe 
in Medicine or Cookery, or a demonstration in Geometry, is not a lesson in 
religion. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



73 



The Boston Courier on political preaching: 

Not only in this city, but throughout this State— and, we fear, 

through most of New England — the interest in religion, and in the observ- 
ance of religion, is declining. The attendance upon church services is com- 
paratively meager. Practical, if not theoretical infidelity is spreading like 
a dry rot throughout the land. The number of men who are living virtual- 
ly without Godis on the increase. The heathen virtues of pride, self-esteem, 
self-reliance, active courage, are rising in estimation, and the Christian vir- 
tues of meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, are declining. Among 
young persons, especially, of both sexes, there is a marked want of vital and 
practical Christianity, and a prevailing lack of interest in its ministrations 
and observances. The general characteristics of young persons are impa- 
tience of discipline, resistance to authority, a fierce assertion of assumed 
rights. To exact. obedience is an outrage ; to yield obedience is a weakness. 
Restraint of all kinds is resented as a wrong; and unchecked liberty — the 
power to do anything and everything that the natural and unregenerate 
heart prompts, without let or hinderance — is valued as the highest good of 
man. 

"And what is the cause of this unhappy state of things ? What has led to 
all this free -thinking, and to this lawless conduct, which is the legitimate 
child of free-thinking ? No one cause can explain it all ; but certainly the 
clergy themselves are in part to blame for it. In the tenth chapter of Leviti- 
cus, we read that Nadab and Abihu ' offered strange fire before the Lord, 
which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, 
and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.' In these words, the 
narrative of a transaction, there is also a symbolical sense, and the express- 
ion of a vital and enduring truth. The clergy of New England have been 
offering ' strange fire before the Lord and the inevitable retribution has 
followed. And this ' strange fire ' is the vulgar fire of secular politics — the 
fire of worldly passions — which wastes and consumes the heart on which it 
feeds. In such a heart the Christian graces can no more take root than roses 
and lilies will flourish in the slag and refuse of a furnace. Politics are 
usurping the place of religion, to a deplorable extent, in the pulpits of New 
England. Sermons are degenerated into stump speeches. The clergy are 
taking a more and more active part in political movements. You will hard- 
ly find a political convention in which one or more of the most active and 
noisy members are not clergymen. If you enter a New England church on 
any Sunday in the year, the chances are at least even that you will hear a 
political harangue, which part of the audience will be moved, to applaud, 
and part to hiss. 

How common it is to see a young chick, just hatched from a divinity 

school, running about with the shell yet on his head, who will undertake to 
settle any question of administration or government as easily as he will pull 
off his glove ! 

"A religious congregation is not, and ought not to be formed on the 
ground of unity in political faith. The same religious truths — the same 
warnings, expostulations, encouragements, consolations — are to be addressed 
to Whigs, Democrats, Republicans, or Native Americans. Before the throne 
of God these distinctions melt away like those of station, wealth, or dress. 
It is one of the most beautiful elements in the Christian faith, that it brings 
together men who on secular topics differ most widely. In the congregation 
of the over-zealous Republican clergyman there will be, or may be, some 
persons who are not Republicans. They are just as conscientious in their 
anti-Republicanism as he is in his Republicanism. But they are constantly 
exposed to the chances of hearing their convictions denounced, their motives 
impugned, and having their blood stirred by insulting insinuations. They 
are obliged to sit still, and hear a clerical dogmatist, from his vantage-ground 
of the pulpit, attack them with flimsy arguments, whose fallacy they have 
long since detected, and could easily show, if it were a proper place for dis- 

10 



74 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



cussion. They are sent home in a frame of mind anything but Sabbatical, 
if not muttering half-suppressed curses between their teeth. The natural 
result follows ; they refuse to go to church where they are visited by denun- 
ciation, and exasperated by abuse. 

" Nor do we put the objection to political preaching solely on the ground 
that such preaching offends the earnest political convictions of a portion of 
the congregation, and thus keeps them away from church. The objection 
exists in hardly less force as to that part of the congregation who may agree 
with the preacher in his views. The preacher's duty is to teach religion, 
and not politics. The general sentiment of the public would discountenance 
a clergyman who, instead of sermons, should give essays on banking or ag- 
riculture, on political economy, on. diatetics on the use and abuse of medi- 
cines. Why should such a peculiar latitude be given to partisan politics ? 
Laymen do not wish, on Sunda}^ to have their thoughts disturbed, and their 
tempers tried, by the heating discussions and jarring conflicts of the past six 
days. They go into the house of God to escape from them. 

" ' Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, 
Of earth and folly born,' 

is the heart's natural language. On Sunday a man seeks to clear the soul of 
the dust and soil of earth, and to garnish it with pure thoughts, tranquil as- 
pirations, ethereal hopes — flowers that have sucked the dews of heaven — 
and how can he do this if his spiritual guide insists on shooting into the 
rubbish of politics ? 

" The effect upon the clergy themselves of this habit of preaching politics 
is most injurious. It acts upon the mind in much the same way as dram- 
drinking acts upon the body. It begets a craving for the coarse, vulgar ex- 
citements, utterly inconsistent with a proper interest in the appointed func- 
tions and appropriate meditations of the pastoral office. The more engaged 
the clergyman becomes in political issues, and the success of this or that po- 
litical party, the more coldly and languidly will he turn to religious themes 
and spiritual contemplations. 

That the spirit of religion is decaying, and the influence of the cler- 
gy is declining, are melancholy facts. We are sorry for both ; as sorry for 
the latter as the former. Both facts are symptoms of the same disease ; and 
the same remedy is needed for both." 



Section VII. 



POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE M. E. PRESS. 

Under this head much might be copied from the organs of the 
M. E. Church to show up the political and partisan character and 
bearing of the M. E. Press, but as the limits of this work forbid 
extensive quotations we subjoin only a few extracts from the of- 
ficial papers of said Church : 

The Northwestern Christian Advocate, of Chicago, says : 

" Our Churches and religious press are now involved in the national con- 
troversies, and they ought to be ; for there are few of our present public 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



75 



questions which do not involve ethical principles. The religion of the coun- 
try did much to save it in the late war. We all saw instinctively, or at least 
intuitively, that the neutrality of the Church would then have been iniquit- 
ous if not fatal. That was a grand discovery ; it led to the restoration of 
one of the sublimest rights and functions of the pulpit and religious press,^a 
right which they had nearly lost by their comparative and long quiescence 
on public affairs, but which they will hereafter tenaciously maintain. 

" The whole Methodist press is now, we believe, without an exception, on 
one side of the present national controversy. It is thoroughly ' radical' for 
the restoration of the Southern States on the most uncompromised principles 
of universal rights and loyalty ; the rebuke and legal punishment of treason, 
the protection of Southern loyalists, the enfranchisement and elevation of 
our emancipated population, and the stern repression of every remnant of 
the rebellion. That press is a power in the land ; we doubt whether there 
is another journalistic power equal to it. It cannot be bribed and it cannot 
be intimidated, and, as it appeals to the moral sense, the conscience of its 
millions of readers, it wields a force which may, in the highest sense, be call- 
ed the 'balance of power.' The political leaders of the hour seem not to be 
aware of its capacity, if, indeed, of its existence. It would be well for them 
to take account of it. They will not fail to do so in the issue, if not earlier." 

The Central Christian Advocate, of St. Louis, Dec. 31, 1863, 
contains the following lines : 

But not so well with copperhead, 

He merits more than killing dead. 

And where to send him we cant tell — 

No place in heaven, earth, nor hell ; 

No place in ocean, sea, nor air ; 

The grave would blush to see him there. 

The Western Christian Advocate, of Cincinnati, March 4, 
1868, says: 

In another place we have chronicled the stirrin'g events of the week at 
the National capital. Andrew Johnson is impeached before the Senate of 
the United States for " high crimes and misdemeanors." The opponents of 
his administration have till now, been divided in opinion as to the propriety 
of so doing. He has at last, however, boldly set at defiance the laws of the 
land, and the overt act has united as one man those who have, for the years 
just past, stood against, the rebellion. Our readers will remember how the 
beastly drunkenness of Mr. Johnson three years ago, at Louisville, and Cin- 
cinnati, and at Washington, on the day of inauguration, was denounced in 
our columns, and how we begged the people forthwith to demand his resig- 
nation. His moral corruption has ever made him a disgrace to the nation. 
Well would it have been had our cry been heeded. He is now, however, 
to be put upon his trial before the High Court of Impeachment, and we give • 
him the benefit of that silence allowed to other accused criminals. 

The Zion's Herald, of Boston, the organ of New England 
Methodism, is reported by the Northwestern Christian Advocate 
of February 5, 1868, to have said as follows: 

Chicago will be overcrowded next May. Did not Republicans and 

Methodists love each other so well, there would be fears of a collisior , But 
as the party meet to nominate a Methodist for President, the Conference 
will do their best to endure the momentaiy crowding of their quarters. 



'76 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



The Christian Advocate, of New York, May 28, 1868, says : 

During the proceedings the enthusiasm of the Convention and au- 
dience present has been intense. After the adoption of the platform G-en. 
Logan, of Illinois, arose and said : " Mr. President : In the name of the 
loyal citizens, soldiers, and sailors of this great republic of the United States 
of America; in the name of loyalty, of liberty, of humanity, and of justice; 
in the name of the National Union Republican party, I nominate as the can- 
didate for the Chief Magistracy of this nation, Ulysses S. Grant." The del- 
egates and immense crowd of spectators could be restrained no longer, and 
rising to their feet waved their hats and handkerchiefs, and shouted with an 
intensity of earnestness which I have never seen equaled. So soon as the 
enthusiasm of the people would allow the formal vote was taken by States, 
and on the announcement by the Chair that General Grant had received on 
the first ballot the total vote the vast crowd manifested their joy by the wildest 

applause A 2;lee club, composed of Chaplain M'Cabe and Rev. Mr. 

Locier, (both ministers of our Church,) and another, came forward and sung 
in fine style a patriotic song composed for the occasion. 



The same paper^of June 25, 1868, says: 

The political characteristic of the Convention was its radical demo- 
cratic spirit, recognizing the political equality of all men, and making but 
little account of the incidents of wealth, culture, and social position. It also 
represented to a large extent the morality of the nation, having in its mem- 
bers and its constituencies most of the elements of society known as Puritan- 
ical. These were both fairly represented in the nominations and in the 

platform It is manifest, however, that the party which lately held its 

Convention at Chicago is the party of the largest liberty — the assertor of the 
rights of manhood. 



The Western Christian Advocate, of May 27, 1868, says: 

And even now those whose sympathies are closely allied with 

Methodism hold some of the most important trusts in the country. Gen- 
eral Grant was brought up under Methodist influence, and his religious in- 
clinations are all that waj^ ; and should he be elected next President of the 
United States it will be largely through Methodist votes — indeed without 
them he could not enter the Presidential mansion. Chief Justice Chase is a 
trustee and a regular attendant of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal 
Church of the National capital, and the religious leanings of Secretary Stan- 
ton are all in that direction. All these facts justify us in calling ourselves a 
National Church. 



The same paper of a later date, (July 8, 1868,) says: 

To say we have no party biases would be improper, because untrue. 

To propose perfect impartiality in dealing with the great questions agitating 
the public mind is out of the question. We can not forget our convictions 
nor rid ourselves of prejudice. Were we to pretend to do so, and avow a 
purpose to act in all things with equal favor to both parties and both candi- 
dates, we should not expect any one to believe us honest. What, then, shall 
we do ? We can only promise to do our best to give the information we 
deem important, and to avoid giving offense to any who may not agree 
with us. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



77 



Dr. Newman, editor of the New Orleans Advocate, and mem- 
ber of the General Conference in Chicago, writes to his paper as 
follows : 

"Place at the head of your column Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler 

Colfax, for the next President aud Vice-President of the United States. 
The National Republican Convention have unanimously chosen them for 
these high offices, and the American people will approve their action. The 
nominees are before us, and we will elect them. Colfax is chosen for the 
purity of his character, and Mr. Wade rejected because of his profanity. 
Let the Church in the South, therefore, rally and support Colfax." 

The papers from which we have taken the foregoing extracts 
are all official organs of the M. E. Church, except the ZiorCs 
Herald, which is the organ of New England Methodism, so 
acknowledged by the New England Conferences. We are told 
in these extracts that the Church and religious press are involved 
in national controversies, and that they ought to be — that " the 
whole Methodist press, without an exception, is on one side of 
the national controversy," and "thoroughly radical" — that the 
neutrality of the Church on politics is "iniquitous" — that polit- 
ical intermeddling is a "grand discovery" — that it is "one of the 
sublimest rights and functions of the pulpit and religious press," 
and one which " they will hereafter tenaciously maintain." The 
M. E. press is also declared to be a "power in the land, wielding 
a force, which may, in the highest sense, be called the balance of 
power," and "political leaders" are admonished to "take ac- 
count of it" — that "they will not fail to do so in the issue, if not 
earlier." 

The poetry on copperheads, the article urging the the impeach- 
ment of President Johnson, the abuse of the President, the state- 
ments that Methodists and Republicans love each other, and that 
the Republican Convention would nominate a Methodist candi- 
date for the Presidency, the intimacy between the General Con- 
ference and the Republican Convention — Bishop Simpson open- 
ing it with prayer while his ministers sung songs on the occasion, 
the preference given to the Republican platform, the acknowl- 
edged party predilections of the M. E. press ; yea, the assertions 
that the entire press of the Church is on one side of the national 
controversy, and that it is thoroughly radical, the claiming that 
the M. E. Church is a "national Church," and that Grant is a 
Methodist candidate, the placing of Grant and Colfax at the 
heads of official organs of the Church, the loud call for the Church 
to rally to their support in the forthcoming election, the claim 



78 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



that they must be elected, if elected at all, by Methodist votes, 
all furnish the most unmistakable and convincing evidence, not 
only of the political and partisan attitude of the M. E. press, in 
which these things are found ; but also of the Church. The re- 
ligious press is the index of the Church. 



Section VIII. 



CHURCH EXTENSION OPERATIONS OF THE M. E. CHURCH. 

Almost every dishonest measure has been resorted to by the 
bishops and ministers of the M. E. Church to rob the Church 
South of her property. This work, commenced during the war, 
still continues. Bishop Ames, under order of Stanton, Secretary 
of War, went South during the war and seized property belong- 
ing to the M. E. Church, South, and appropriated it to the use 
of his own Church. But as we desire to say nothing but what 
can be fully established by the facts in the case, we will, before 
making further remarks on this point, present some extracts from 
the records of the M. E. Church. This order bears date of No- 
vember, 30, 1863. The following is a paragraph from the 

STANTON-AMES ORDER." 

" You are hereby directed to place at the disposal of Rev. Bishop Ames, 
all houses of worship belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 
in which a loyal minister who has been appointed by a loyal bishop of said 
Church, does not officiate. It is a matter of great importance to the Gov- 
ernment in its efforts to restore tranquility to the community, and peace to 
the nation, that Christian ministers should, by precept and example, support 
and foster the loyal sentiments of the people." 

The following is taken from a letter addressed to the Corres- 
ponding Secretary of the M. E. Church Extension Society, by 
Rev. W. P. Miller, of Alabama, and published in the Western 
Christian Advocate^ Jan. 1, 1868: 

"There are two churches that I could secure with a very little ready 
money. Can you help us in time of need ? 

"1. A church, 45x55, a plain frame, covered with shingles, good floor, 
with seats and pulpit, but not ceiled, built during the war, but has never 
been paid for. 

" Last year I raised two hundred and fifty dollars, leaving one hundred 
and fifty unpaid. The man who owns the land and built the house, says if 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



79 



we will pay him the hundred and fifty dollars, he will give us a deed, but 
we are so prostrated that we can not do it now. If we fail others will do it, 
and we will be shut out of doors. 

"Another church, 40x50, in general description like the first This 

house was also built during the war, and partly paid for. The builder built 
on his own land, and was to convey the title when paid for. He died in the 
war, but his widow says she will give us a deed, if we will pay her the bal- 
ance, one hundred dollars. Please help us, if possible, in this case also. 



The Western Christian Advocate, of Feb. 19, 1868, con- 
tains an account of a " Church Extension Meeting," at Indian- 
apolis, Indiana, from which we extract the following : 

At Asbury Chapel Bishop Clark preached with great power, and 

in conclusion set forth the claims of the Society. He presented the wants of 
three churches in Alabama — one could be saved for fifty dollars, another for 
one hundred, and a third for one hundred and fifty. The Bishop asked the 
Church to aid these societies of loyal Christians struggling for an existence, 
and Asbury most cheerfully responded in a contribution of three hundred 
dollars. 

The Northwestern Christian Advocate, of March 18, 1868, 
contains the following under the head of " Church Extension :" 

When the Church Extension Society was first organized, in commending 
the new cause to our people, the bishops in their address said : " We know 
of no agency in which the contributions of our people can accomplish a 
greater amount of good." At a later date Bishop Clark, after a careful sur- 
vey of the field, and especially of the South, put the case in stronger terms 
and said : " I do not know where else money can be used with such cer- 
tainty of sure and large returns. 

In many instances these opinions have been fully justified by the sequel. 
Here is an example : A short time ago, Rev. W. P. Miller applied for aid- 
to the small amount of two hundred and fifty dollars to secure a couple of 
churches in the southern part of Alabama. Not having anticipated calls for 
help from this region, the general committee had not set apart anything for 
it, but as the amount was small and the case urgent, the board determined 
to grant the request and trust to special contributions to meet it. Asbury 
Church, Indianapolis, has subsequently subscribed the amount and fifty dol- 
lars additional for another case. The money was forwarded to Bro. Miller, 
and he has written to the corresponding secretary the results, as follows : 
" I have invested the means you sent me, and have secured the two church, 
es of which I wrote — title all right. The churches are frame, the one 40x50, 
and the other 45x55 feet square, and are worth here about $1,000." 

Rev. L. P. Drake, a presiding elder of the Holston Conference 
of the M. E. Church, in writing to the Secretary of the Church 
Extension Society for aid, says: 

The church in Elizabethton, in this State, has been a bone of con- 
tention ever since the organization of this (the Holston) Conference. The 
church and lot are worth about four thousand dollars. At the commence- 
ment of the war there was a debt of about eleven hundred dollars. (It was 
a new building.) With interest and costs added, it now amounts to about 
fourteen hundred dollars. On yesterday the property was sold, and the 
Church South, which had owned it, not being able to purchase, I bid it in 



80 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



for our Church at fourteen hundred dollars. (See certificate inclosed.) I 
have pledged the Church Extension Society to aid us by raising five hun- 
dred dollars, the first installment, which must be paid immediately. Now I 
do hope and earnestly pra3 r that we may not be disappointed in this, for our 
salvation as a Church depends upon our receiving this five hundred dollars 
immediately. — JSfew York Christian Advocate, Jan. 16, 1868. 



The New York Christian Advocate, of Feb. 27, 1868, contains 
a letter from a correspondent, at Portsmouth, Ya., from which 
we take the following : 

They organized here before the war closed, and were supplied with 

preachers from the Baltimore Conference ; but when the war ended and the 
Confederates returned, this society was driven out of the church, the pro- 
perty being claimed under the deed of the M. E. Church, South. 



Dr. N. E. Cableigh, of Athens, Tennessee, in an article in the 
Northwestern Christian Advocate, of April 1, 1868, on the ob- 
stacles to a re-union of the two great Methodist bodies, says : 

The church property, too, of which we have taken possession in 

the South must be given back to them before they will consent to treat upon 
the subject. 

In a letter in the New York Methodist, of May 23, 1868, Dr. 
Newman, editor of the New Orleans Advocate of the M. E. 
Church, says : 

" "And we solemnly hold that it would be of incalculable advantage 

to the South and the cause of Christianity therein, if the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South, should cease to be." 

The following is from the ZiorCs Herald, Boston, as quoted by 
the Nashville Christian Advocate, of the M. E. Church, South, 
Feb. 20, 1868. 

Mr. A. T. Rollins, of Macon, Ga., is in the city soliciting means to rescue 
the Macon Centenary College from the hands of the rebels. A debt of $6,600 
is on it. Subscriptions to the amount of $3,000 by Southerners, are unpaid, 
and the building will soon go under the hammer if not relieved. As a 
nucleus of education, religion, and loyalty, it should be saved. Every lover 
of the nation, whether belonging to our Church or not, should give a help- 
ing hand. 

The following resolution was adopted by the Missouri and 
Arkansas Conference, held at Louisiana, Missouri, commencing 
March 7, 1866 : 

Resolved. That the preachers be urged to exercise personal supervision 
over such Church property not yet secured to trustees, urge the Churches 
to select trustees, and when this is not done, to petition the county court to 
appoint such officers. — Minnies Missouri and Arkansas Conference, p. 36. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



81 



The Wisconsin Conference held at Ripon, Wisconsin, Septem- 
ber 6-10, 1866, adopted the following : 

Eesolved, That we regard with grateful approbation the work which our 
Missionary Board and Church Extension Society are prosecuting in the 
South. — Minutes, Wisconsin Conference, p. 29. 

The following resolution was adopted by the Illinois Confer- 
ence, held at Bloomington, Illinois, September 19-25, 1866 : 

Resolved, That we do most heartily endorse the efforts of our bishops and 
ministers that are now being made in the Southern States, and will devoted- 
ly pray for their ultimate success. — Minutes Illinois Conference, p. 15. 

The General Conference, in Chicago, 1868, in its report on the 
Memorial of the Holston Conference of the M. E. Church South, 
says : 

Your committee have had before them a memorial from a committee of 
seven appointed by the Holston Conference, of the M. E. Church South, 
stating that our ministers and people within that region have seized the 
churches and parsonages belonging to said Church South, and maltreated 
their ministers. The statements of the paper are all indefinite both as to 
places, times and persons and no one has appeared to explain or defend the 
charges. On the contrary we have also before us, referred to our considera- 
tion, "numerous affidavits from ministers and members of our Church, in the 
various parts of this country, evidently designed to refute any charges that 
might be presented by this committee of seven. It seems from these papers 
that as soon as the federal power was re-established in East Tennessee whole 
congregations came over to the M. E. Church, bringing with them their 
churches and parsonages that they might continue to use them for worship. 
It also seems that much of the property in question is deeded to the M. E. 
Church, it being so held before the secession of the Church South. We 
have no proof that any in contest is held otherwise. The General Confer- 
ence possesses no powers if it would, to divest the occupants of this property 
of the use or ownership of it paid for by their means, and would be guilty 
of great impropriety in interfering at all at this time when test cases are al- 
ready before the courts. If, however, we should proceed so to do, with the 
evidence before us largely ex parte, it is true, but all that we have, the pre- 
sentation of the memorialists cannot be sustained. 

Having given some items bearing on the Church Extension 
operations of the M. E. Church from her own records, we now 
proceed to give a few extracts from other sources. The follow- 
ing is a brief history of a Church fraud at Knoxville, Tennessee, 
as given by a correspondent of the Nashville Christian Advocate^ 
of February 6, 1868 : 

The history of this case is about as follows : Soon after the war, 

and after one of the Northern Bishops had procured an order from the Sec- 
retary of War to take Church property in the South, and when there was ^ 
move^on the part of the Church North to take and make our Church pro- 
perty their own, Rev. M. Spence had the damages of the church in Knox- 
ville estimated, which altogether amounted to more than $8,000, as may be 

11 



82 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



seen on the books at Washington. That estimate was never paid, and when 
Mr. Spence, and those who acted with him, found that the trustees and 
members of that Church would contend for it if they took it, they ceased all 
effort, so far as it is known, about the damages, and set up no claim to the 
old church, it being occupied by the freedmen as an institution of learning 
and a place of public worship. In May, 1866, a member of the Holston 
Conference saw the President and Chief Quartermaster on this subject, and 
urged the payment of damages, as that congregation was greatly in need of 
a house of worship ; in the meantime, at the request of General Donelson, a 
new estimate was made out by S. T. Atkin and others, amounting to pre- 
cisely $3,600, the amount that was paid. Late in the fall of 1866 Col. W. 
was going to Washington City, and some of the trustees requested him to 
act as their agent, and pee the officers of the government on the subject again, 
which he did, and at his earnest solicitations and representations of the ne- 
cessities of the case, there was an order issued at Washington on the 5th 
day of January, 1867, for payment of damages, and on the 14th day of Jan- 
uary, 1867, Rev. J. F. Spence drew the money at Louisville, Ky. Now if 
it should appear, as I think it will, that they never took charge of the church 
until after they got the money which had been granted to repair it, the case 
will look still darker, if possible, for it will be apparent that the last act of 
pious villainy was intended in some sort either to justify or cover up the 
first. 



In another issue of this paper the same writer gives the follow- 
ing account of Church seizing at Athens, Tennessee : 

" Perhaps in no place has greater injustice been committed by the North- 
ern Methodist than in Athens, Tenn. In the fall and winter of 1864-5, the 
Rev. E. Rowley, then a minister of the M. E. Church, South, was preaching 
to that congregation, as they desired him to do. But one W. C. Daily, who 
was the first member of the old Holston Conference who took the price, had 
allowed himself to be appointed superintendent of an East Tennessee mis- 
sion of the M. E. Church, sent to Athens one J. L. Mann, who turned Mr. 
Rowley out of the pulpit, and took full possession of the church and every- 
thing else connected with it, and since, early in 1865, no minister of the M. 
E. Church, South, has been allowed to preach in that house, while a few 
families who did but little toward building the church now occupy and hold 
it, against the men and the families of those whose money built the house. 
Our congregation in Athens is made up mainly of the very best families in 
that community, a majority of whom were firm and consistent Union men 
during the war, but they, with the entire congregation of the original Meth- 
odist Church there, are turned out of doors by a few families who have left 
that Church and joined the Northern Methodist Church, which never ex- 
isted in Tennessee until since the war. But on that subject they have de- 
ceived many, by calling themselves the ' Old Church,' the ' Mother Church,' 
and adding, with a great flourish, the 1 Loyal Methodist Church.' " 



The following account of the mobbing of Rev. J. Brillheart, a 
minister of the M. E. Church, South, near Athens, Tennessee, is 
from a communication of the same writer in the Christian Advo- 
cate, of Nashville, February 6, 1868: 

His first appointment in Athens was on the second day of October, 

1865. When he got there he found the Northern Methodists in possession 
of his church. Some of the leading brethren went to the preacher and asked 
permission for Mr. Brillheart to preach in the church once in each month, 
but the request was peremptorily refused, and those who asked it threaten- 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



83 



ed with insult by the self-important usurper, who exhibited his own weak- 
ness and vanity from our pulpit every Sabbath. Mr. B. procured some 
other place, and delivered his earnest message of peace and good will to the 
few who had the courage to go and hear him. That evening he was hunt- 
ed up by a company of young men, (all loyal) and particular friends of the 
M. E. C., and told he could preach no more in that town. Early in that 
week his appointment was a few miles from Athens, at which he was mob- 
bed and rudely rode upon a rail in the presence of his congregation, which 
was then dispersed, and no worship allowed ; after this some time he was 
followed out of Athens by the mob, and surrounded upon the public high- 
way, and told that he had to quit preaching, or leave the country, or else 
they would kill him, and the question had to be settled then (but if he would 
join the loyal Church he could go on and preach,) he told them that "he 
would not leave, that they could kill him, but he intended to preach until 
he died." This unlawful, most wicked, and outrageous treatment was inflict- 
ed upon a gentle, innocent, unoffending man — a minister of the gospel, an 
old gentleman and a stranger in the country, whose only offense was that he 
was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the States South. 

From the same communication we copy the following account 

of the mobbing of two other Southern Methodist preachers at 

Decatur, Tennessee : 

What was the offense of Rev. C. Long, Presiding Elder on the Athens 
District, and Rev. J. G. Swisher, both peaceable, good men, who went to 
Decatur, in Meigs county, Tenn., to hold a quarterly meeting, who, on their 
arrival at the place, were arrested by a mob and driven fifteen miles, and 
were made to carry poles upon their shoulders for some distance, and 
through the town of Athens, as a public indignity ? This mobbing occur- 
red not long after that of Rev. Mr. Brillheart, and in the same region of 
country, and no doubt under the same " countenance" or instigation — and 
the " grievous provocation" was exactly the same — that of being ministers 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the States South, not willing to leave 
it and join the Northern branch, which never existed here until since the 
war, and which for many years has been rapidly increasing in fanatical abo- 
lition and radical sentiments, and of late has become intensely 'political. So 
in every case of mob violence that has occurred in East Tennessee, there 
was no " provocation " except what was found in the presence and Church 
relations of our ministers. I do not pretend to say how many of the preach- 
ers and members of the M. E. Church have been guilty of countenancing or 
encouraging this most unjust and outrageous conduct, but if all the mob vio- 
lence which has been brought to bear upon our ministers was not produced 
and brought about by the North ern Methodist Church in East Tennessee, 
how can you account for the fact that no other ministers scarcely, except 
those of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have been mobbed? 

The following account of the mobbing of Rev. H. C. Neal, 
near Morganton, Tennessee, is by a writer in the Nashville Chris- 
tian Advocate, of February 20, 1868 : 

I wish to inform you of one of the most shocking incidents of this or any 
other age. Brother H. C. Neal, the preacher on the Louisville and Mary- 
ville Circuit, has been meeting with fierce opposition at various points on 
his work. At Axley's Chapel, at his first appointment, he was warned not 
to " come back to that neighborhood again." This warning was given by 
the class-leader of the M. E. Church, (North,) who walked into the church 
while he was preaching, and handed him a written notice, stating that if he 
came back again he would be handled, etc. Mark the threat ! At Morgan- 



84 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



ton, some four miles from Axley's, he received the same kind of warning, 
but he meekly and quietly preached to the people, left other appointments, 
and went his way. On Sunday the 2d Feb., he had appointments at these 
two places. At Morganton, in the morning he found the house occupied by 
negroes when he arrived. He retired to a private house, and there preach- 
ed to his congregation. He then started, in company with a young man, 
to his afternoon appointment at Axley's Chapel. When the had gone about 
a mile they were met in the road by two men, who seized the reins of his 
bridle, presented pistols to his head, and ordered him to get down — at the 
same time ordering the young man who was with him to leave quick, which 
he did. Others immediately poured in from the brush — one cried out, 
"■ Blindfold him " — at the same moment he was struck with a pistol (probably) 
on the head, cutting a gash an inch and a half long, to the skull ! He was 
blindfolded, and dragged through the woods some distance from the road, 
tied to a tree, stripped to his shirt, and whipped almost to death ! Two of the 
fiends, one on either side, commenced whipping at once ! He supposes they 
struck him twenty-five or thirty times each ; and thinks they had several 
rods in their hands at a time. When they quit whipping they made him 
get down with his face on the ground and remain in that position until they 
left, with the assurance that if he raised his head while they were in sight 
they would shoot him ! When he arose he knew not where he was — his 
horse was gone, and he alone in the woods. He saw a little branch near 
him — he followed it and it led him into the road. He made out to walk to 
a house near by and found his horse, and in pain and suffering rode to the 
house of a friend ! We feel disgusted, outraged, and sick at heart while we 
gaze upon it. Brother Neal is a model young man — educated, intelligent, very 
prudent, and an excellent preacher. Even our enemies have nothing against 
him, only that he belongs to the M. E. Church, South. The mover of the 
whole affair told him that if he (Neal) would just join the " loyal Church, he 
should be protected — he would be his best friend — his house should be his 
home," etc. So it is not hard to see whence comes this terrible persecution. 
I could fill your paper with just such scenes as this, though in a milder form. 
The truth is, you do not know — the Church at a distance does not know the 
difficulties and sore trials through which we are passing in East Tennesse. 

The Memphis Avalanche of May 3, 1868, contains a letter 
from a correspondent residing at Bristol, Tennessee, an extract 
of which is found in the St. Louis Christian Advocate of May 
10, from which we copy the following notice of a mob in Wash- 
ington county, Tennessee: 

" While political hate has materially subsided, with the prospect of gen- 
eral quiet throughout the country, still we have a class of scalawag North- 
ern Methodist preachers who keep up a bitter feeling between the two 
branches of the Methodist Church — the Northern and Southern. The only 
refuge or hope that these adventurers and apostates have is in keeping alive 
the animosities engendered by the war, and by this method checkmate the 
progress and prevent the restoration of the Southern Church to its original 
status and prosperity. Two weeks since Rev. G. W. Miles, minister in 
charge of the church near Limestone depot, in Washington county, was 
forced to retire from his church by an armed band of leaguers. He asked 
the audience to go to the depot and he would preach to them. The immense 
assemblage followed him, leaving the eleven disciples of the Rev. Dr. Pearne 
to guard the house. While this gentleman was driven from his accustomed 
place of worship and his flock forced to take shelter under the sheds of a 
depot, still not a word of complaint was uttered by any one. Like the 
Waldenses, they raised their thoughts to Him who is the protector and guar- 
dian of the righteous." 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



85 



The following extract from a letter of Rev. A. L. P. Green, 
D. D., a minister of long and high standing in the M. E. Church, 
South, gives a clear insight into the Church Extension operations 
of the M. E. Church, in the Southern States. We copy from the 
St. Louis Christian Advocate of May 13, 1868: 

The facts now to be stated I will not attempt to prove, as I suppose they 
will not be questioned. 

In the first place, the Church, North, is now in possession of quite a num- 
ber of churches and parsonages, which before the war were the property of 
the Church, South. 

And in the second place, there are a number of persons who are claimed 
and counted as members of the Church, IS" orth, who were before the war 
members of the Church, South ; and this change has been in many instances 
brought about without the act or volition of said persons. 

I would further state as fact, that the preachers of the Church, 2s orth, are 
not willing that the preachers of the Church, South, should return and 
preach to their former congregations. These facts we will take for granted. 

The first movement that was made, which requires particular notice here, 
is this : As the Confederate army fell back, and the country was taken pos- 
session of by the Federal army, the preachers of the Church, South, to a 
considerable extent, either fell back with the Confederate army, or quietly 
remained at home, so that the churches were in many instances left without 
pastors. Now, the question will arise, Why did the preachers leave their 
flocks? The answer is this : The Federal army occupied the city of Nash- 
ville, and a portion of Middle Tennessee, some time before they took pos- 
session of East Tennessee, and the Federal authorities arrested and sent off 
to prison a considerable number of the Methodist preachers in Nashville 
and its vicinity, against whom no charge or specification was ever brought. 
This, as you might suppose, alarmed the preachers of the Church, South, as 
they had no fancy to rot in prison. There came into the country with the 
Federal army a number of preachers who belonged to the Church, North, 
and finding the churches without pastors, they proposed to take charge of 
the churches, saying that it was all the same — that slavery would be clone 
away with — and that being the bar to union, that now the Churches would 
unite. This was no doubt often said in good faith, and the people went 
over in this way, en mcme, in many places. In some instances the member- 
ship wished to wait and see how the war was going to terminate before they 
took any action. In such cases the preachers of the Church, North, called 
the military to their aid, and took possession by force, and the preacher get- 
ting possession of the Church books and records, enrolled them all upon his 
list, and counted them so many members added to the Church, North — 
stating always that the Confederacy would be put down, and that the 
Church, South, would never be allowed to reorganize ; and that those who 
wished to be Methodists would have to belong to the Church, North, as that 
was the only Church — that is, Methodist Church — that could survive. So 
matters moved on till the close of the war, when the preachers of the Church, 
South, began to look up their congregations and houses of worship, parson- 
age, etc. 

Now, you will find a different position taken by the preachers of the 
Church, North. They now claim the property that was held by the Church 
in common before the division in 1844, because the deeds were made to the 
M. E. Church. I will say just here, once for all, what right the Presbyterian, 
Baptist, or any other Church, save that of the M. E. Church, may have to 
the property of the M. E. Church, South, I can not say, as their right, if they 
have any, has never been tested ; but the claim of right on the part of the 
M. E. Church has been litigated and settled, and it is now part of the history 



86 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



and records of the United States, as well as the Church, that the M. E. 
Church (North) has no right in law or equity ; so that if all the members of 
the Church, South, were to die in one day, some other body would have to 
be found in whom the property could vest. 

Where the Church North, holds property which has been obtained by the 
Church, South, since the division of the Church, and is deeded to the Church, 
South, the Church, North, claims the property on the ground that the 
Church, South, is a disloyal Church, and has forfeited all right to property 
or protection. Now, let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the Church, 
South, is disloyal, and has forfeited her right, to whom was she disloyal ? 
To the Government of the United States, and to the Government of the 
United States the forfeiture is made, and not to the Church, North. The 
M. E. Church, North, is not yet the Government, and cannot claim on the 
score of disloyalty. But the fact is, as has already been shown, that the 
Church, South, is not disloyal, and, as a Church, never was, and such pro- 
perty as the United States authorities took possession of during the war, as a 
military necesssity, has long since been restored to the Church, South ; and 
in many instances appropriations have been made for the repairing of in- 
juries done to the property of the Church ; though I believe, in some in- 
stances, where the members or friends of the Church, North, have been the 
agents to receive such appropriations, instead of appropriating as intended 
by the Government, they have been turned over to the Church, North, to 
aid in building for that Church. I think the time will come when this mat- 
ter will be looked into. 

There is yet another aspect of this part of our subject. The Church, 
North, has appropriated funds for Church-extension, and in some instances, 
I believe, the following course has been pursued : Preachers of the Church, 
North, have sent agents through the country to look up old claims against 
Church property, and secured them, often, no doubt, at a heavy discount ; 
and then brought suit and obtained judgment, and a decree to sell the pro- 
perty without the right of redemption ; and the poor people worshiping in 
the churches, having been wasted by the war, found themselves unable to 
pay the amount of the judgment; and thus churches and schools have pass- 
ed into the hands of the Church, North, by a sham legal process ; while the 
whole proceeding was a mere catch, but little better than fraud. 

At other times a majority of the trustees of a church have gone over to 
the Church, North, and carried the church with them, when all know, who 
know anything about the law of the Church, that a man has to be a mem- 
ber of the Church to make him eligible to the office of trustee, and when he 
ceases to be a member, his trusteeship expires ; so that a man can not quit 
the M. E. Church, South, and still be a trustee. When a member leaves the 
Church he forfeits membership, trusteeship, and all right to control the pro- 
perty of the Church. And yet, after all, the Church North, holds the pro- 
perty of the Church, South ; and 7iow, 1 will not say. 

But how do they hold on to the membership of the Church, South ? And 
shall I tell it all ? The preacher of the Church, North, announces that he 
has all the names of a certain society, and will consider them all members of 
the loyal Methodist Church, unless there are some that wish to belong to the 
rebel Church — meaning the Church, South — stating at the same time, that as 
a loyal man, he will be compelled to make public the names of those who re- 
fuse to belong to the loyal Church — that if the country has enemies in our 
midst, the people ought to know it, and those who withdraw will do so at 
their own risk ; while there are, no doubt lewd fellows of the baser sort in 
almost every neighborhood, who care not a farthing for any Church, but 
being cowards at heart, wish to establish their bravery, and they consider 
it a safe opportunity to fall upon some old preacher or Church member, 
whose principles and religion are against fighting. Such surroundings are 
calculated to make men and women, who wish to have peace and quiet, 
hesitate and wait till these difficulties are taken away. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



87 



Scores of documents like the foregoing might be added, but 
we forbear. Enough are given already for a fair understanding 
of the facts in the case. One thing remarkable about these ex- 
tracts is, that those of them copied from the records of the M. E. 
Church, so far as they go, and those taken from other sources, 
agree as to the fraudulent principle on which the Church Exten- 
sion operations in the South are carried on. By this we do not 
mean to say that the M. E. Church claims to have acted unjust- 
ly, but that her records, as well as other testimony, show this to 
be the case. 

That she claims a large amount of property in the South in the 
shape of churches, parsonages and institutions of learning is an 
admitted fact.- The South Carolina Conference, at its session in 
Charleston, February 1868, after a few brief years of operation 
on the part of a few ministers, report 79 churches and 6 par- 
sonages in their possession, with an increase in one single year of 
55 church edifices and 4 parsonages. The Tennessee Confer- 
ence, when first organized, Oct. 11, 1866, reported 14 churches 
in its possession, and at its second session, one year after, it re- 
ported 30 houses of worship and 1 parsonage, which shows an 
increase of 16 churches in one year. The Georgia Conference, 
at its organization, October 10, 1867, reported 49 churches. The 
Mississippi Conference, at its third session, December 1867, re- 
ported 47 churches, 5 parsonages and 8 institutions of learning. 
The Holston Conference, at its session, October, 1867, reported 
203 churches and 6 parsonages, with an increase in one year of 
44 churches and 4 parsonages. These five Conferences alone, 
(independent of other Conferences in the South) which had no 
existence until after the close of the war, according to their latest 
statistical tables, have in their possession 408 churches, 18 par- 
sonages and 8 institutions of learning, the aggregate value of 
which is put down at $446,659.00, almost a half million dollars. 
But this is not all. They have other institutions of learning not 
included in their statistical reports. The Central Tennessee Col- 
lege for instance, which an M. E. Doctor of Divinity boasted 
of having secured for less than half its value. 

Now, whence came all this vast amount of property, this great 
and sudden acquisition of wealth to the M. E. Church ? Evident- 
ly these churches, parsonages and institutions of learning were 
not built by the members and friends of the M. E. Church in the 
South since the war; for almost every letter written by their 



88 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



preachers in that part of their work, represent that class of peo- 
ple that come to the M. E. Church as exceedingly poor ; and 
consequently not able to build. 

It appears that many ways have been pursued by minsters of 
the M. E. Church to get and hold possession of the property of 
the M. E. Church, South. 

First, they secured from government an order to seize and hold 
this property, which they did in a number of instances, until com- 
pelled to disgorge by an order of President Johnson. The order 
to seize Church property is now generally known as the Stanton- 
Ames order, because given by Stanton, Secretary of War, to the 
pious Bishop Ames, investing him with authority to take possess- 
ion of property not his own, and for which neither he nor his 
people ever paid a cent. The military power of the government 
was pledged to the execution of this order. 

Second, they have taken possession of some of that property 
on the ground that it was deeded to the M. E. Church prior to 
the separation in 1844, thus violating the plan of separation as 
agreed upon by both branches of the Church at that time, and 
also bidding defiance to the powers that be, in showing their dis- 
regard and contempt for the decision of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, by which decision the M. E. Church, South, 
has held this property until dispossessed of it by these pious in- 
truders of the North. That the M. E. Church not only claims, 
but holds this property in direct violation of the decision of the 
Supreme Court is admitted in the General Conference report on 
the Memorial of the Holston Conference. This is a fine record 
for the " loyal Church " to make. 

Third, they claim and hold this property, in some places, on 
the ground that members coming to them from the M. E. Church, 
South, have the right to bring with them the property of the 
Church from which they come. While holding and claiming the 
right to churches on this ground, they, right in the face of this 
claim, refuse to recognize the right of whole societies going from 
them to the Church, South, in the Baltimore Conference, to carry 
with them the Church property. To say the least of it, this 
shows a vast amount of dishonesty somewhere. 

Fourth, they have, with appropriations from the Church Ex- 
tension Society, searched after and bought up old claims against 
Church property, doubtless, in many instances, with heavy dis- 
count, and forcing sales, have bought them in for a mere trifle, 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



89 



when those occupying them, having been wasted by the war, were 
unable to protect themselves against such proceedings. Thus 
churches and institutions of learning have passed from the M. E. 
Church, South, into the possession of the Church, North. This 
process of securing church property is fully established by the 
foregoing extracts from the records of the M. E. Church, and 
consequently cannot be denied. No argument is needed to prove 
this manner of getting the property of the Church, South, to be 
a violation of every principle of justice and honesty, as well as 
of the golden rule, which requires us to do to others as we would 
they should do unto us. 

Fifth, mob violence has been resorted to as a means by which 
to gain and retain possession of church edifices of the Church. 
South, in places not a few. If any are disposed to doubt this, let 
them read the foregoing extracts on this subject. Wicked as 
this measure may seem, the principle involved in it is the same as 
that involved in the other measures of which we have spoken, 
and which have been fully established by the records of the M. 
E. Church. This is but another method to acquire the same end. 

But it may be said that the bishops and ministers generally of 
the M. E. Church do not endorse the Church seizing policy of 
their ministers in the South. Rev. E. R. Ames, one of the bish- 
ops of this Church, was the very man who secured the order for 
Church seizing, and went South to execute it, and did execute it 
in a number of instances ; and yet not a minister in said Church, 
so far as we know, has ever raised his voice against it. The M. 
E. Church even claims not to have obtained the property of the 
Church, South, dishonestly. Her Conference resolutions in the 
North approve the work of Church extension as prosecuted by 
their bishops and ministers in the Southern States. The resolu- 
tion of the Missouri and Arkansas Conference of 1866, which we 
have copied, makes it the duty of the members of that body " to 
exercise personal supervision over such Church property not 
yet secured to trustees, urge the Churches to select trustees, and 
when this is not done, to petition the county court to appoint 
such officers" It is evident from the very language of this reso- 
lution itself that the Church property desired to be secured had 
never been in possession of the M. E. Church ; and consequently 
did not belong to it. This shows the intention of the ministers 
of this body to use every possible effort to secure and hold pro- 
perty belonging to another party. This resolution, passed by 

12 



90 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



this body of ministers, right under the eye of one of the bishops 
of the Church, contains as plain a case of premeditated fraud as 
'ever disgraced a convict in the State prison ; and yet, these pro- 
fessed ministers of the Lord Jesus, under the garb of Christianity, 
are guilty of such enormous outrages upon every principle of jus- 
tice, Christianity and civilization. 

This Church robbing process is carried on upon the puritanical 
principle as endorsed by Bishop Sinrpson in his address to a Cen- 
tenary meeting in ~New York on the 9th of April, 1866, and re- 
ported in The Methodist, of New York, of the 14th of the same 
month, as follows : 

" As to money, the gold and the silver belong to God ; and, for myself, I 
feel very much like the old Puritan fathers felt, when, in a town meeting, a 
long time ago, proposing to take the land from the savages, they said : ■ ' Re- 
solved, first, the earth is the Lord's ; resolved, second, the earth belongs to 
the saints ; resolved, third, we are the saints of the Lord.' 

This sentiment agrees well with the M. E. Church extension 
operations in the South. It is the very principle upon which this 
work is prosecuted. The bishops and ministers of the M. E. 
Church being " the Saints," according to Bishop Simpson, have 
a divine right to al] the property they have seized. The end jus- 
tified the means, in their estimation. True, a few of their minis- 
ters published a card against the policy of their people mobbing 
the ministers of the M. E. Church, South ; but this appears not 
to have been done until the indignation of an outraged people 
and the public sentiment in places where this violence was com- 
mitted arose against it. It was the result, not of a pure motive, 
but a selfish purpose, not of principle, but of policy, and as such 
shows a great lack of a true manly and Christian principle. This 
card, of itself, is a proof of the existence of these mobs. 

The bishops and ministers of the M. E. Church fully expected, 
at the close of the civil contest, to go in and possess the property 
of the M. E. Church, South, as their share of the spoils. It was 
this that gave them such interest in the prosecution of the war. 
They had every reason to believe that government officials would 
aid them in this work. Even before the close of the war they 
commenced upon this work under the leadership of Bishop Ames, 
protected and backed up by military power. But when Mr. 
Johnson became President of the United States, he revoked the 
Stanton-Ames order, and put a stop to the seizing of Church pro- 
perty under the protection of the military power of the govern- 
ment ; and this is the great secret of their opposition to him. 



3IETII0DIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH. 



91 



It has "been published repeatedly in the M. E. papers that pro- 
perty lias "been secured from the Church, South, for a mere trifle, 
for less than half its value, &c. How is this ? If one man gets 
the property of another for less than half its value it cannot be 
otherwise than by fraud. The publishing of this to the world is 
evidence of the absence of all honesty on the part of those en- 
gaged in this business. The money raised for the prosecution of 
such a work in the South may very properly be regarded in the 
light of a corruption fund, as it is used to carry on fraudulent 
measures for the building up of an ambitious denomination. The 
manner in which they get and hold on to the membership of the 
M. E. Church, South, is an eternal disgrace to the M. E. Church. 
"We pause not to speak of it now ; but only refer the reader to 
the last paragraph of Dr. Green's letter on page eighty-six. Let 
all read it carefully. 

In the conclusion of this section we ask. Can it be possible 
that the bishops and ministers of the M. E. Church do these 
things with an eye to the glory of God, or for the purpose of ex- 
tending the spiritual reign of Christ in the South ? The very 
thought of such a thing is too preposterous to entertain for a mo- 
ment. The Kingdom of Christ is not to be extended by military 
force, neither by fraud nor mob violence. Why are these preach- 
ers sent South, while there are hundreds of thousands right at 
home in the North unsupplied with the Gospel? — when in a 
single State in New England there are fifty towns without regu- 
lar means of grace ? The answer is plain. The Church that re- 
sorts to violence and fraud cannot claim to have in view the sal- 
vation of souls. All things considered, we are forced to the con- 
clusion that the M. E. Church, in her efforts to extend her bor- 
ders, is actuated by a desire for political power. This may be 
read in the columns of her official papers, in her Conference reso- 
lutions, in the speeches and sermons of her leading ministers, as 
well as in her extension movements. 



92 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Section IX. 



POLITICAL DOINGS OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE, IN 1868. 

Some time ago in a Prosj:>ectus of this work, published in sev- 
eral papers, we promised to give the political doings of the Gen- 
eral Conference. I regret my inability to present here the regu- 
lar report of this body on the state of the country. A special 
committee was appointed on this subject, which in due time made 
its report ; but this report has never, to my knowledge, been pub- 
lished in any of the papers of the Church. It will likely appear 
in the General Conference Journal, which it seems, is not yet 
through the press. What we copy under this head is taken from 
The Daily Christian Advocate, published at Chicago during the 
session of the General Conference. 



Rev. G. Haven, of the New England Conference, offered the 
following on the impeachment of President Johnson: 

Whereas, The most solemn act to which the government of the United 
States in its judicial capacity has been called in all its history is near its con- 
summation ; and whereas, the failure of the impeachment of the President 
will subject the greatest of our Generals and all under his authority to the 
power of an infuriated Executive, who has Opposed every law that has been 
made to heal the nation on the only true and permanent basis of equal rights 
to loyal men ; and whereas, his release will also re-animate the dying em- 
bers of the rebellion throughout all the South, sacrifice the lives of many of 
our fellow-citizens, and cast all that region into terror, distress, and danger ; 
therefore, 

Resolved, That the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
now in session, solemnly and earnestly invokes upon the Senate of the 
United States the blessing of Almighty God, that they may be guided in the 
great responsibility now devolving upon them, that tyrannical usurpation 
may be rebuked, the authority of law may be maintained against the most 
dangerous hostility of an Executive who avows his irresponsibility to its ob- 
ligations, and the peace and safety of our fellow-citizens in all the South may 
be secured. 

Resolved, That we hereby assign the hour of nine to ten o'clock, on Fri- 
day morning next to be devoted to prayer to our God and Savior that He 
may endue our Senators with wisdom, and guide them in the duty they are 
soon to discharge, so that His righteousness and peace may, through them, 
in our beloved land, spring forth before all nations. — The Daily Christian 
Advocate, May 14, 1868. 

After some discussion upon the foregoing preamble and resolu- 
tions a substitute was adopted simply setting apart an hour to 
pray upon the subject, which was, the next day reconsidered and 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHTJKCH. 



93 



laid on the table, and the following, presented by Bishop Simp- 
son, was adopted : 

Wheeeas, There is now pending in the Senate of the United States, the 
most important question which has ever engaged its attention ; and whereas 
the evidence and pleadings in the case have been fully spread before the 
people, so that all may form an enlightened opinion ; and whereas we are 
deeply impressed, that upon its rightful decision will largely depend the 
safety and prosperity of our nation, as well as the religious privileges of our 
ministers and members in many parts of the South ; and whereas, painful 
rumors are in circulation that, partly by unworthy jealousies, and partly by 
corrupt influences, pecuniary and otherwise, most actively employed efforts 
are being made to influence Senators improperly, and to prevent them from 
performing their high duty, therefore, 

Resolved, That we hereby appoint an hour of prayer from 9 to 10 o'clock 
A. M., to-morrow, to invoke humbly and earnestly the mercy of God upon 
our nation and to beseech Him to save our Senators from error, and to so 
influence them that their decisions shall be in truth and righteousness, and 
shall insure the security and propriety of our beloved Union. — The Daily 
Christian Advocate, May 15, 1868. 

The foregoing preamble and resolution, presented by Bishop 
Simpson, and which was adopted, is certainly the same precisely 
in substance w r ith the document offered by Rev. G. Haven, which 
was rejected. The only difference is: the one offered by Mr. 
Haven is more outspoken than that of Bishop Simpson's. Both 
favor the impeachment of the Chief Executive of the United 
States. Both set apart an hour of prayer, evidently, to invoke 
the Almighty in favor of the conviction of the President, as is 
clearly seen in the preamble of each document. In the preamble 
and resolution adopted the General Conference professes to be 
able to render an " enlightened opinion" or verdict in the case of 
President Johnson then before the Senate of the United States. 
In every case a verdict should be given according to the law and 
testimony, but in this document the General Conference favors 
the conviction of the Chief Magistrate from outside considera- 
tions, such as the safety and prosperity of the nation, and the re- 
ligious privileges of the ministers and members of the M. E. 
Church in the South. This whole affair is but another evidence 
of the intermeddling character and partisan attitude of the M. E. 
Church. Well, the hour of prayer at length arrived. It was on 
the day before the Senate was to render its verdict in the case. 
The whole Methodist Episcopal Church, by her representatives in 
General Conference assembled, got down before God and prayed 
for one long hour for impeachment. But alas ! all is in vain. The 
Lord did not hear them. The next day the President was acquit- 
ted. The preamble and resolution, the prayers and the time spent, 



94 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



are all lost, and nothing remains to the M. E. Church but another 
record of her political intermeddling and political attitude. 

The following on Indian Affairs was adopted : 

Resolved, By the members of the General Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church of the United States, in Conference assembled : 

1. That, as a body of ministers, representing a large Christian denomina- 
tion, we cannot be indifferent to the policy of our Government in the man- 
agement of the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States ; involv- 
ing as it does, the fate of the entire remnant of the race. We most cordially 
approve the pacific policy inaugurated for the settlement of existing difficul- 
ties ; and we do earnestly recommend that this policy be carried out so far 
as it can be consistently with the protection and safety of the frontier. 

2. That we regard the efforts hitherto made for the physical, intellectual, 
and moral improvement of our Indian tribes, not as a failure, but as a signal 
success ; a success that will be enlarged and increased as existing hindrances 
shall be removed, and a kindly and well adjusted system shall be adopted 
for their management. 

3. That we further recommend to the General Government, that, in ac- 
cordance with plans now under legislative consideration, the semi-civilized 
tribes now residing west of the State of Arkansas, numbering about one hun- 
dred thousand, be organized into a State Government, [or at least a Territo- 
rial] under wise, just and humane regulations, and with all the rights and 
privileges of other States, [or Territories,] which State [or Territory] shall 
De of sufficient dimensions, constituting a nucleus of Indian civilization, and 
permanent home, to which shall be invited, and received all other tribes or 
parts of tribes that may be desirous to improve their condition. 

4. That, in the event of the adoption of this measure by the General Gov- 
ernment — thus securing to this people a permanent home, where we may 
labor with them efficiently and without disturbance — we will direct in- 
creased effort to their civilization and moral improvement, and will co- 
operate with the strong arm of the government, in saving from extermina- 
tion and oblivion the remnant of this race now remaining upon our soil. 

5. That certified copies of this action be forwarded to the Commission of 
Indian Affairs, and to the Chairmen, respectively, of the Committees on 
Indian Affairs in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States. — The Christian Advocate, May 21, 1868. 

The resolutions on Indian Affairs, recommending to the Gen- 
eral Government the organization of the Indian Tribes into a 
State or Territorial government with all the rights and privileges 
of other States or Territories, furnishes further evidence of the 
political intermeddling of the M. E. Church. In the event the 
Government adopts the measures here recommended, the M. E. 
Church expects, " under the strong arm of the government," to 
extend her borders a little. Instead of relying upon the strong 
arm of the Lord she looks to civil authority for aid in the f)rosecu- 
tion of her work. The M. E. preachers make frequent reference 
to the " strong arm of the government" in the extension of their 
borders. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



95 



The following preamble and resolution, presented by Rev. J. S. 
Mitchell, of the Virginia and North Carolina Conference, was re- 
ferred to the Committee on Church Extension : 

Whereas, The City of Richmond, Va., is the great center of religious and 
political influence in the Southern States now, as it was the capital of the 
Confederacy during the war of the rebellion. And whereas our Church, at 
considerable expense and ministerial labor, has established a small church 
and congregation of highly respectable citizens, in a rented edifice in that 
city. And whereas, notice has been served upon the trustees by the owners 
of the church, we have occupied for nearly two years, that we must vacate 
on the 15th day of June next ; and whereas it is of the most vital importance 
to the interests of our Church, throughout the South, to maintain a vigor- 
ous Church organization in that great centre of influence. Therefore, 

Resolved, That the Committee on Church Extension be requested to direct 
the earnest attention of the Chureh Extension Society to the matter of 
purchasing or erecting a suitable house of worship in Richmond, at the 
earliest possible day. — The Daily Christian Advocate, May 21, 1868. 

This document favors the purchasing or erecting of a church 
in Richmond, Va., on the ground that it is " the great center of 
religious and political influence in the Southern States." This 
language is too plain to be misunderstood. It shows that M. E. 
Church extension in the South is carried on for political purposes. 
A church edifice is to be established in Richmond because it is 
the great center of x^olitical influence. 



Protest of the General Conference in reference to Chaplains : 

1. Resolved, By the General Conference, in the name and in behalf of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, that we hereby protest against the unequal 
and unjust appointment of chaplains in the Military and Naval Academies, 
and in the Army and Navy of the United States. 

2. Resolved, That a Committee of five, consisting of three ministers, one of 
whom shall be a bishop, and two laymen, be appointed to confer with other 
religious bodies, and also to memorialize Congress in order to secure proper 
legislation on the subject. — The Daily Christian Advocate, 3fay29, 1868. 

This protest is a direct interference with civil authority and 
seems to have been actuated by political and ambitious motives. 
Millions of earth's inhabitants are without the Gospel, whose 
souls are as precious in the sight of the Lord as those in the Navy, 
Army and Military Academies of the United States. Why then 
contend for position as chaplains in these if the salvation of souls 
is the only object? If those in the service of the United States 
had not the Gospel preached to them, and if there w r ere none 
others to whom the Gospel could be proclaimed, the case would 
be different ; but as it is we are inclined to the opinion that the 
whole affair is but the result of a desire for political influence. . 



96 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



The following occurred in the General Conference : 

J. P. Newman stated that it is necessary for J. Welch, of Texas, to leave 
for his home, and he asked that he have leave of absence for the remainder 
of the session. 

R. S. Foster asked for the reasons that make his absence necessary. 
J. P. Newman said for several reasons, ecclesiastical and political. — Tlw 
Daily Christian Advocate, May 28, 1868. 

From this it appears that political interests demanded the at- 
tention of one of the members of the General Conference, and 
that body excused him on the account of his political duties. The 
Lord and Csesar both seem to have claims on the services of this 
brother. He has political as well as ecclesiastical duties to per- 
form. 

The General Conference applauds for Gen. Grant: 

W. Butler said : He had in his hand the bill of the last man from India. 
The time was forty days ; the amount was $637.50. (A voice, " In gold ?") 
Well, we are going to have gold when we get Grant in for President. (Ap- 
plause.) — The Daily Christian Advocate, May 27, 1868. 

The language : " when we get Grant in for President," used by 
a member of the General Conference in a speech to that body is 
not without political significance. Then mark the manner in 
which this remark was received by this body and the enthusiasm 
manifested at the mentioning of Grant in connection with the 
Presidency and the reader will see at once the partisan bearing 
and attitude of the General Conference. Had the democratic 
candidate been, at that time before the people, and had his name 
been mentioned in connection with the Presidency as that of 
Grant's was, doubtless hisses, instead of applause, would have 
been heard. But as "Republicans and Methodists love each 
other so well," and as Grant is a Republican, Methodist Episco- 
pal candidate, some allowance, perhaps, should be made in this 
case. 

Rev. Jas. Porter vs. Decision of the Supreme Court : 

He continued : Now Sir, I am surprised. I never expect to be in a posi- 
tion in this life — God forbid I ever shall be — when I shall have to adopt 
Judge Nelson's unrighteous and wretched opinion in order to get out of a 
bad scrape. A brother has got the decision of Judge Nelson in our suit 
with the Church, South, and quotes it here. Does not everybody know the 
history and character of that decision ? Does anybody doubt that that in- 
famous decision was given in the interest of slavery ? Does not everybody 
know that he was tied up to the slaveholders of the South, and would have 
said anything else for his slaveholding friends which they might have de- 
sired ? Does not every one know that slavery was God then, and that men 
bowed down and worshipped it ? The same questions were tried here in the 
west, and the case argued by a lawyer of Cincinnati, who did not, like in 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



97 



Choate, feel it necessary to keep in view its political bearings and relations 
to slavery, and the lawyer made his point and carried his case. But when 
we came before Judge Nelson or Judge Taney we went down. And why ? 
Because slavery demanded it ; and we went down in violation of law and 
justice — went down martyrs to slavery, and lost one-half our Book Concern. 
— The Daily Christian Advocate, May 12, 1868. 

This speech of Mr. Porter in the General Conference is another 
record of the political bearing of this body. When civil authority ' 
favors the M. E. Church all is right, but when the decisions of 
the courts are against her, then are they " unrighteous, wretch- 
ed" and "infamous." Thus we see civil authority not only dis- 
regarded, but denounced and rebuked in the strongest terms. 
This does not look much like submission to the "powers that be." 
Neither does it comport well with the loud professions of "loyal- 
ty" on the part of the M. E. Church. 

We have briefly given a part of the political doings of the 
General Conference of 1868, and without dwelling further upon 
this subject, we conclude our remarks by saying : that so far as 
we are able to judge, the actions of this body are as j:>olitical and 
partisan as those of previous General and Annual Conferences ; 
and being so they show the M. E. Church to be as political and 
partisan now as at any previous time. 



Section X. 

M. E. CHT7ECH AXD XEGEO EQUALITY. 

The political, ecclesiastical and social equality of the races has 
become one of the most prominent planks in the political creed of 
the M. E. Church. In addition to the many resolutions given 
elsewhere in this book on this subject we present a few others: 

The East Maine Conference, in 1866, adopted the following 
resolution : 

Resolved, 4. That we heartily approve the formation of Conferences or- 
ganized without regard to difference of race- or color, and fervently desire 
that all the brethren of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever race or color, 
may enjoy equal Church privileges with ourselves, and, if possessing the 
requisite qualifications, may not, from the spirit of caste, meet with obstacles 
to their advancement to the floor of the General Conference or the board of 
Bishops. — Minutes East Maine Conference, p. 24. 

13 



98 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



The Wisconsin Conference, in 1866, passed the following: 

Resolved, That we heartily approve of the organization of the South Caro- 
lina and Mississippi Conferences, without distinction of color, and we trust 
that our whole southern work, and also our northern and border work, will 
proceed on the same plan. — Minutes Wisconsin Conference, p. 29. 

The churches propose to educate and thereby elevate thern to equal, social 
and political rights, due every American citizen. — Ibid, p. 30. 

The doctrine of negro equality is not only to be taught, but 
strictly carried out in the Church. Already it has been put into 
practice. Conferences are organized without distinction " of race 
or color." Other Conferences, long established, are receiving 
colored preachers among them, and it is recommended that the 
whole Church " proceed on the same plan," and, in opposition to 
the "spirit of caste" advance colored men to the floor of the 
General Conference and the Board of Bishops. Colored bishops 
are desired in the M. E. Church to preside in the General and 
Annual Conferences over white preachers, and to appoint them 
to their fields of labor. It is said, Churches propose to educate 
the negro "to equal social and political rights due every Ameri- 
can citizen." 

Political equality places negroes in possession of all the privi- 
leges of citizenship — to vote, and hold office — any and every of- 
fice, from the lowest to the highest, in the gift of the people. 
Ecclesiastical equality gives them the right to legislate for us in 
the Church, and to be our bishops and pastors. Social equality 
brings them into our parlors and families. It makes the gentle- 
men of color the husbands of our sisters and daughters ; and the 
ladies of color the wives of our brothers and sons. Social equali- 
ty can mean nothing less than this ; otherwise it is not equality. 

Rev. James Porter in his speech before the General Conference 
on the admission of the colored delegation said. 

There is no difficulty about the color, sir. As to seats Bro. Young has the 
first choice if they are admitted, for he has spoken for them ; but if after 
that there shall be any left, we will take them and distribute them among 
the New England delegation. We should be glad, sir, to see this Confer- 
ence mixed a little by the introduction of this colored element, we think it 
would be a good thing to bring in these brethren of the South, and this will 
eventually be, and I will vote for these brethren just as soon as I can do so 
legally. — The Daily Christian Advocate, May 12, 1868. 

The following is the manner in which they were received : 

At the adoption of the several resolutions there was a great sensation and 
when the report as a whole was adopted the house rang with the heartiest 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



99 



applause, the members of the Conference joining with the audience in the 
galleries, in round after round, which told the joy attendant upon this event. 
Hereafter black faces will be seen in this reverend body and black hands 
will be lifted with white in enacting the laws of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. — The Daily Christian Advocate, May 13, 1868. 

Upon reading this one would suppose that the very best enter- 
tainment that Chicago could afford would have been given to 
these colored delegates ; but this is not the case. Among all the 
super-loyal and negro equality preachers and members in Chicago, 
there was not found one who thought it at all convenient to give 
these men a place of rest, and food after their journey. They had 
to go to a second-rate, colored boarding house. What base hy- 
pocracy is here revealed ! These men can preach, for Gospel, the 
social equality of the races, and enforce it by precept upon others, 
but are not willing themselves to practice it ; nay, not even to 
give a colored man a place in their houses to rest his weary limbs. 

But why do the ministers of the M. E. Church talk so much 
about the rights, equality and elevation of the colored race? 
Why so much said concerning the duty of the government toward 
them? Why so much sympathy expressed for them? For what 
purpose have they been introduced into the General Conference? 
These questions are not hard to answer by one who has an eye 
on the political movements of that Church. Her great aim evi- 
dently is political power ; and as she expects negroes soon to en- 
joy political privileges, she is endeavoring to win them over and 
gather them into her bosoms as an element of political strength. 
The following extracts from the report of Southern Illinois Con- 
ference on the Freedman's Aid Society, and which is given as a 
reason why efforts should be made to gather the colored people 
into the M. E. Church, corroborates the truth of this statement : 

These people will be a power in the land. Passing events clearly indicate 
that they will soon obtain political as they have obtained civil rights. — Min. 
Southern Illinois Conference of 1866, p. 41. 

To gain political power the M. E. Church is seeking to bring 
under her control every element of political strength ; and for 
this end negro equality is preached from the pulpits, taught in 
the Sunday Schools and advocated in the periodicals and litera- 
ture of the Church. Every effort to organize them into separate 
Conferences meets with great opposition. Dr. Curry, of the New 
York Christian Advocate, says : 

We are aware that the tendency to separation comes chiefly from 

the colored ministers, as it did also from the Germans in respect to separate 
German conferences. But it should not be favored, because the best inter- 
ests of all parties will be promoted by the unity of all classes. — Christian Ad- 
vocate, April 2, 1868. 



100 



POLITICAL STATUS OF THE 



Section XL 

RESULTS OF POLITICAL INTERMEDDLING. 

The political agitation in the Church has been attended with 
a spirit of intolerance, bigotry and bitter persecution. Officers 
in the Church have been deposed — thousands of members and 
ten thousands that used to attend the ministry of the word have 
been driven from the Church. In one single year the M. E. Church 
lost over sixty thousand members. Ministers who would not 
preach politics were denounced as traitors and persecuted out of 
the ministry and the Church. The desecration of the house of 
God by political conventions, caucuses and secret Union League 
gatherings has been common throughout the land. In many 
places Churches have been broken up. Everywhere broils and 
contentions have followed in the train of political preaching — thus 
the peace and harmony of society and the country have been 
destroyed. Church divisions, a general religious declension, the 
long four years of civil war through which our country has been 
called to pass, together with the wide spread infidelity in the 
land, are some of the fruits of the political intermeddling of the 
Church. 

Strange fires are burning on the altars of God to-day. Fanati- 
cism rules. Generals and politicians are lauded to the skies from 
ecclesiastical bodies and the pulpit. The actions of men are 
compared to the immutable laws of the Almighty. As -evidence 
of this we present the following declaration of Bishop Janes in 
his address to the Wesleyan Conference of Great Britain, July 
28, 1868. Speaking of the emancipation proclamation of Lincoln, 
he said: 

Its authority I believe to be as imperishable as that of the writing 

of God upon the tables of stone upon Mount Sinai.— The Daily Christian 
Advocate, May 9, 1868. 

But we are admonished to bring this little work to a close; 
and do so by saying to our readers that we have endeavored to 
present nothing but what is perfectly reliable. 

Erratum— On page 11, Sec. iii, third line, 1866 should read 1868. 



POLITICAL STATUS 



RUMSEY SMITH SOX. 



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